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ON 




J?.^s 



THE VERNON DANTE 



WITH OTHER DISSERTATIONS 



H. C. BARLOW M. D., F. G. S. 

CAV. MAU., SOC. C ORRIS. De' QUIRITI DI ROMA, 

EHRENMITGLIED DEB DEUTSCHEN DANTE - GESELLSCHAFT, 

AUTHOR OP "CRITICAL, HISTORICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL CONTRIBUTIONS 

TO THE STUDY OP THE DIVINA COMMEDIA". 

ETC. ETC. ETC. 




WILLIAMS AND NOBGATJE, 

14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON; 

AXD 

20, SOUT^E-REDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH. 

1870. 



ON 



THE VERNON DANTE 



WITH OTHER DISSERTATIONS 



/ 
H. C. BARLOW M. D., F. G. S. 

CAV. MAU., SOC. CORRIS. De' QUIRITI DI ROMA, 

EHRENMITGLIED DER DEUTSCHE^ DANTE - GESELLSCHAFT, 

kUTHOR OF "CRITICAL, HISTORICAL ASD PHILOSOPHICAL CONTRIBUTIONS 

TO THE STUDY OF THE DIVINA COMMEDIA" 

ETC. ETC. ETC. 





WILLIAMS AND NORGATE, 

14, HENRIETTA STREET , COVENT GARDEN, LONDON; 

ASD 

20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH. 

1870. 






LEIPZIG : PRINTED BY B. G. TETTBNER. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 
Introduction. The Literary Works of George John Warren, 

Lord Vernon 1 — 4 

Chapter I. 

Notice of the first Volume of Lord Vernon's Work. Dedi- 
cation. Extracts from the Author's address to the reader. 
Motive for publication. Notice of friends. Varianti, and 
remarks on them. The grammatical ordo. The Notes. Indices, 
etc. to the first Volume 4 — 12 

Chapter II. 

Second Volume of Lord Vernon's Work. Life of Dante 
Allighieri. His ancestors as noticed by Pelli and others. 
The Elisei. Cacciaguida. Geri del Bello. Dante's mother, 
Donna Bella. Dante's marriage. Different statements of Authors 
as to the number and names of his childern. Descendants of 
Dante. Union of the Allighieri and Sereghi families. Notices 
of Dante's early life. Beatrice. Dante's priorato. His exile. 
Dante's love for his wife and childern. His first refugio . . 12 — 20 

Chapter ILL 

Second Volume of Lord Vernon's work continued. The 
letter of Frate Ilario. Dante's Travels. Completion of the 
Inferno. The Messo di Bio. Death of the Poet. The titles 
of various documents. The Carta Storica- geografica. The 
English Stipendiaries and their leader Giovanni Aguto. The 
Florentine Constitution. The Heraldry of the Republic, and 
Conclusion of the Volume 21—31 

Chapter IV. 

The Third Volume of Lord Vernon's Work on Dante. 
The Album. Object of the Album. The part taken in it by 
Mr. Kirkup of Florence. The Life of Lord Vernon ' by the 
Editor. Generosity of his Lordship. Note of the Portinari 
family. The Portrait of Dante. Letter of Mr. Kirkup on 
the discovery of the Portrait. Description of the fresco in 
which it occurs. Objections to its being by Giotto, replied 
to. The mask of Dante 32—40 



Chaptee V. 

The Album of Lord Vernon continued. Florence of the 
cerchia antica. The houses of the Allighieri. Dante's door 
and the history of its misfortunes. Drawing made of it by 
Mr. Seymour Kirkup , and its restoration under his direction. 
Sasso di Dante. Arch of the Porta di San Pietro. Official 
publications on the houses of the Allighieri, with remarks 
on the report of Professor Fulcini. Dante's Tomb at Ravenna. 
His picture in the Duomo at Florence. Cristoforo Landino. 40—48 

Chapter VI. 

Notice of the remaining Illustrations in the Album. With 
special remarks on Pisa and the Torre della Fame .... 48 — 56 



Dante at Verona. 

The course of Dante's exile and subsequent history as 
related prophetically by Cacciaguida. The attempts of the 
Bianchi on Florence. The affair of Montaccianico. Dante's 
separation from his party. The Scaligeri of Verona. Dante's 
primo refugio e primo ostello. Can Bartolomeo. The imperial 
eagle added to the arms of the Scaligeri in 1311. Character 
of Alboino. The prophetic style of speaking as used by 
Cacciaguida. Can Grande il gran Lombardo. The corrupted 
reading of the Divina Commedia in reference to this subject, 
and its consequences. Rectification of the text by Monsignor 
Dionisi of Verona. Readings of the principal Codici in the 
Library of the British Museum. The statue of Dante at Verona. 59 — 72 

Dante in the Val Lagarina. 

The Court of the Scaligeri at Verona. Guglielmo di 
Castelbarco. Dante's villegiatura in the Val Lagarina. The 
Slavina di Marco. The Castle of Lizzana. Benaco, its boun- 
daries and the courses of its waters. Vellutello. Of the name 
Pennino and its popular use. Critical examination of the locality 
indicated by Dante where the bishops of Trent, Brescia, and 
Verona were each entitled to give the episcopal benediction. 73—86 

Appendix 87 



THE VERNON DANTE. 



INTRODUCTION. 

THE LITERARY WORKS OF GEORGE JOHN WARREN, 
LORD VERNON. 

In the coarse of the past year was published in Lon- 
don, in the Italian language, a work on the Divina Corn- 
media of Dante Allighieri, which, for utility of purpose, 
comprehensiveness of design, and costly execution, has 
never been equalled in any country. It did not contain 
the whole of the sacred poem, nor did it entirely fulfil 
the intention of its noble projector, but such as it came 
forth after long years of preparation, and after experiencing 
many vicissitudes, it might justly be regarded as the 
grandest and most magnificent literary monument ever 
raised to the memory of the Poet. 

It was in three ponderous folio volumes, and the la- 
bours of many of the most distinguished artists and men 
of letters in Italy had been engaged upon it for upwards 
of twenty years. Yet, important as it was in a literary 
point of view, and so honourable to this country as the 
munificent production of an English student of the Di- 
vina Commedia desirous to benefit and assist other stu- 
dents, who, like himself, earnestly set about mastering 
its marvellous contents, and forming as it did an epoch 
in the history of Dante Literature, very little notice was 
taken of it in our periodical publications, no adequate 
account of it was furnished by reviewers, editors fought 
shy of it, and the general reading public heard scarcely 
anything about it. This may partly be explained by 



the circumstance that the work had been privately printed, 
and the book- trade was excluded from having anything 
to do with it. It was intended for the public libraries 
of Europe, where students of all countries might have 
access to it, for the personal friends of the Author, and 
for the private libraries of those devoted admirers and 
followers of Dante who , like* the noble Lord with whom 
it originated, seek no other reward for their literary la- 
bours than the satisfaction of promoting the study of their 
Master's divine poem, and reaping the approval of a good 
conscience in thus honouring his memory. 

The Author, George John Warren, Lord Vernon, had 
long been distinguished in Europe as the Maecenas of 
Dante Literature. For years he had lived in Florence 
amid the cherished scenes of the Poet's early life and 
hopes, surrounded by a literary circle whose congenial 
studies and pursuits mutually aided the advancement of 
his own. The first work printed by him showed the course 
he intended to pursue: 

I primi sette canti delT Inferno di Dante AligMeri 
disposti in or dine grammaticale. Firenze 1842*. 

This was the harbinger, though at a long interval, ot 

Lord Vernon's recently completed work, and a sample, in 

part, of what it was intended to be. It was followed by : 

Petri AUeglierii super Dantis ipsius genitoris Comoe- 

diam Commentarium, etc. Florentiae. 1846. 

The book, consisting of more than 950 pages, was edited 
by Vincenzio Nannucci, and dedicated to an illustrious 
Camaldolese, to whom Lord Vernon felt indebted for the 
courteous reception accorded him by Pope Gregory XVI, 
in the previous year, and for the encouragement he had 
received to continue his Dante labours. Other works 
appeared in succession. 

Chiose sopra Dante. Firenze 1846. 

This publication, commonly called il falso Boccaccio, was 
dedicated to Sir. T. G. S. Sebright Bart., from whom 
Lord Vernon had obtained the first notice of it. Two 
years later appeared a more important production : 

* This is the title and date given in the memoir of Lord Vernon 
by Sir James Lacaita, but a copy in my own library has the date 1841 
with a somewhat different title — Dante Inferno secondo il testo di 
B. Lombardi con or dine e schiarimento per uso del forestieri di L. V. 
This copy, which was bought at a stall under the Ufizi in 1851, con- 
tains corrections and alterations in the handwriting of Prof. Nannucci. 



Chiosc alia Cantica dell 3 Inferno di Dante Allighieri 

attribuite a Jacopo suo figlio, etc. Firenze 1848. 
It was dedicated to Seymour Kirkup * , to whom Danto- 
pliilists are so much indebted for the discovery of Dante's 
portrait, rightly attributed to Giotto, and for the rescue 
of his house from utter oblivion. 

A month later was published a larger commentary 
by an anonymous author of the first half of the 14 th - cent.: 

Comento alia Cantica di Dante Allighieri di Autore 

anonimo, etc. Firenze. 1848. 
It was dedicated to three literary friends, Vincenzio Nan- 
nucci, Brunone Bianchi, and Pietro Fraticelli. 

Touching these two works, both printed from codici 
which had become the property of Lord Vernon, a con- 
troversy of some interest arose between his librarian Ste- 
phen Audin, who edited it, and Colomb de Batines, the 
eminent Dante bibliographer, who ascribed the second to 
Jacopo, and regarded the first as anonymous. But be that 
as it might, both were agreed that the second was the 
oldest commentary on the Inferno extant, and probably 
composed about 1328; an opinion subsequently confirmed 
by the erudite Dantophilist, the Aw. Jacopo Ferrari of 
Reggio. Ten years later appeared that splendid volume 
in folio, of nearly eight hundred pages, entitled: 

Le prime qaattro edizioni delta Divina Commedia 

letteralmente ristampate per cura di G. G. Warren 

Lord Vernon. Londra, Boone, 1858. ** 
It contained facsimiles of the originals, and was dedi- 
cated to the Accademia della Crusca, of which learned 
Italian society Lord Vernon had been made a Socio cor- 
rispondente in 1847. It was the most precious gift which 
his generosity had hitherto conferred on the students of 
Dante, and was very carefully edited by the illustrious 
chief of our great national Museum Library, Sir Antonio 
Panizzi, who, vying with Lord Vernon in zeal for the 
Poet, took upon himself the onerous responsibility of con- 
ducting the work through the press. In no other country 
could it have been produced, for no other library in the 
world possesses copies of the four originals. 

Lord Vernon had also intended to print the Latin 
commentary of Benvenuto da Imola, but scarcely had the 

* "Per V. anni- collaborator e con me negli studii Danteschi". 
see Dedication. 

** It was printed by Charles Whittingham , and was reviewed in 
the Athenaeum for April 23. 1859. 

1* 



first few sheets passed through the press, when illness 
obliged him to relinquish his design. * 

Lord Vernon w T as a socio of various literary societies, 
and a member of the Royal Commission for the publication 
of the Testi di lingua in the provinces of Emilia. He was 
also created a Cavalier of the Maurizian Order, shortly 
after the great commemoration in honour of Dante held 
in Florence in .May 1865, a national festival which the 
state of Lord Vernon's health, to his deep disappointment 
and grief, prevented him from attending. He was much 
missed on that occasion, and his absence was felt to be 
indeed a loss. On the last day of the May following, in 
the Baronial mansion of the family, Sudbury Hall, Der- 
byshire, Lord Vernon closed his eyes in peace, aged 
sixty- three. He was not, like Copernicus, permitted to 
see the termination of his great work, but filial piety per- 
formed what Fate to him had denied. Lord Vernon's publi- 
cations constitute an abiding claim on the gratitude of 
all students of the Divina Commedia. 



CHAPTEE I. 

NOTICE OF THE FIRST VOLUME OF LORD VERNON'S 
GREAT WORK. 

Dedication. Extracts from the Author's address to the reader. Motive 

for publication. Notice of friends. Varianti and remarks on them. 

The grammatical ordo. The Notes. Indices, etc. to the first volume. 

The title of the first volume of Lord Vernon's great 
work is as follows: 

L' Inferno di Dante Alighieri disposto in ordine gram- 
maticale e corredato di brevi dicliiarazioni da G. G. War- 
ren Lord . Vernon, accademico corrispondente delta Cruse a. 
Londra per Tommaso e Guglielmo Boone, 1858. ** 

After the title is the following affectionate dedication 
to the memory of the first Lady Vernon — 

* Lord Vernon also published un romanzo cavalleresco, entitled 
u Febus e Breus". 

** The three volumes are printed on carta imperiale by Baracchi 
and Son of Florence, the successors ofPiatti in the printing establish- 
ment at Prato. 



Questa edizione illustrata dclV Inferno di Dante Alighieri 
destinava come pegno di affezione e di rispetto a mia Moglie 
Isabella Carolina Lady Vernon, senza il cui conforto non 
Vavrei max condotta a termine, Iddio avendo chiamato a se 
qiiella ottima donna, non mi rimane clie offrire questo tri- 
bute alia sua memoria. 

Londra 1. Agosto 1857. Vernon. 

This volume contains, in five hundred and forty-two 
pages, the text of the "Inferno" with a grammatical ordo, 
brief explanations of words, persons, and places, and a 
series of extremely useful analytical tables of the allegory 
as expounded by commentators ancient and modern. 

The dedication is followed by an address to the 
reader from which we learn the object and scope of Lord 
Vernon's literary labours. He says — "In my studies of 
the Divina Commedia, although assisted by .the best com- 
meDtators, not a few nor trifling difficulties presented 
themselves, to remove which much labour was necessary. 
Thinking now that the same difficulties might occur to 
other strangers, who, like myself, are no great proficients 
in the Italian language, I have resolved to dedicate my 
labours to them such as they are 77 . This, however, was 
written many years previously, for the same words, or 
nearly so, occur in the introduction to the first work Lord 
Vernon printed in 1841. From that time to the close of 
his life he carried out with persevering zeal and princely 
liberality his resolution to devote his time and fortune to 
the advancement and cultivation of Dante Literature. In 
his address, however, the Author remarks that he desires it 
may be distinctly understood that he does not presume to 
teach Dante to the Italians, but if by chance any one del 
bel paese should find himself assisted by this work in 
gathering the sentiment of any passage hitherto but im- 
perfectly understood, he can only exclaim with the count 
Leopardi, in his preface to the "Canzoniere" of Petrarca, 
ex ore infantium et lactentium, or some other ejaculation 
to the same purport. 

In reference to the various senses intended by the 
Poet, a as stated in his letter to Can Grande of Verona, 
Lord Vernon observes, "A scrupulous interpreter, after 
having given the literal sense, cannot neglect the allegorical, 
but it would seem that the greater number of commen- 
tators explain the text as if Dante had said that it was 
anfisenso instead of polisenso, and after having given, as 
they were bound to do, the literal interpretation, proceed 
to explain the allegory exclusively in one sense, either theo- 



logical, or moral, or philosophical, or political, each one 
according to his own inclination or favourite study 77 . Into 
these various senses the Author tells us he does not mean 
to enter, but only to furnish a few hints of them, the 
size and scope of his work not admitting of more, and 
a diffidence in his own ability withholding him from any 
attempt to penetrate that selva oscura in which so many 
learned men have gone astray and lost themselves. Of 
Dante's sincerity and true christian principles Lord Ver- 
non very justly says — "I do not hold at all with those 
who pretend that under the mask of philosophy, or poli- 
tical partisanship, Dante has intended to make war on 
religion, being convinced that he was a good Christian, 
and, so far as I know, a good Catholic also' 7 . Dante was 
eminently both^ " Those also' 7 , the Author adds, "fall 
into error who accuse the poet of having little love for his 
country. He desired an Emperor, not an autocrat, but 
a rightful Lord, a successor of the Caesars, the legal head 
of the state, hoping and trusting that through him Italy 
would attain unity, power and peace, and would again 
become the Queen of nations 77 . It was characteristic of 
the late Lord Vernon to speak lightly of his own literary 
acquirements, no less than of his liberality, whenever 
these were alluded to. He had a singular disposition to 
underrate his own acts and deeds, and a habit of treating 
as unworthy of notice what the world regarded as ex- 
ceptional cases of kindness, munificence, and generosity. 
Yet no one was more sensitive than himself to any at- 
tention received or kindness offered, which he always 
repaid a hundredfold in his own meek and unostentatious 
manner. The present work bears evidence of this in the 
grateful allusions to those literary friends who had as- 
sisted him in it, and who in 1858, when the first volume 
was printed, were then no more, as Mariano Armellini, his 
much esteemed Italian master, to whom, in a note, he 
modestly attributes what little he knew of the language*, 
Stephen Audin; and Vincenzio Nannuci, for whom he had 
a great regard, and considered him as quasi il Varrone 
of Italian literature. * Among Lord Vernon's intimate 
friends at Florence were the eminent Dantophilists Bru- 
none Bianchi and Pietro Fraticelli; also Giuseppe Ca- 

* Professor Nanrmcci was born in 1787, at Colle a Segna, about 
seven miles from Florence. In 1837—39 he printed bis Manuale del 
primo secolo della lingua Italiana; a second edition of which ap- 
peared in 1858, a year after his death, which he had dedicated to Lord 
Vernon in segno cli animo riconoscente. 



nestrim, the Cav. Giuseppe Antinori, the Cav. Francesco 
Bonaini, Giunio Carbone, and others, who are especially 
named by the Author in reference to the second volume. 
Sir Antonio Panizzi also comes in for a deserved share 
of praise. The merits of our countryman Mr. Kirkup, 
who had for years been Lord Vernon's fellow-labourer in 
this work, are made manifest in the third volume. 

The remarks of Giacomo Leopardi in his preface to 
the "Canzoniere" ; and those of Cesare Balbo in his Life 
of Dante, in reference to works on the Divina Comme- 
dia, were thought so applicable to the purpose of Lord 
Vernon that they are given in extenso after the address 
to the reader. The Cosmography of the Poet, a description 
of the Infernal circles, a notice of the time occupied in 
passing through them, and an epitome of the Cantos fol- 
low. The text is that of the Paduan edition of 1822, with 
some few variations taken from the volgata , from the Co- 
dice Claricini in the library of Cividale del Friuli (Batines, 
Bib. Dant. Tom. II., p. 160), and from other codici and 
approved editions. The following are among the readings 
adopted : 

Di quella fera alia gaietta pelle: 
. Si che parea che l'aer ne tremesse: 
E durera quanto il mondo lontana: 
Come Tarena quando il turbo spira: 
Che e porta della fede che tu credi: 
Che per amore al fine combatteo : 
Or vo' che tu mia sentenza ne imbocche: 
Ruine, incendj, e toilette dannose: 
Cose che daran fede al mio sermone: 
E chinando la mia alia sua faccia: 
Di quei che si pingeva con la zanca: 
Che al Re Giovane died! i mai conforti: 
Gocciar gin per le labbra, e '1 gelo strinse: 
Piu lime gia, quand' i' feci '1 mal sonno: 

The readings generally agree with those of the late 
Brunone Bianchi (1854), but not in all cases, as the above 
selection will show, where we have tremesse for "temesse", 
per amore for "con amore' 7 , toilette for "collette", daran for 
"torrien", gin for "su". In a series of parallel columns 
succeeding the Cantica, these variations are collected and 
contrasted with those of the Paduan text, and reasons 
are given for their adoption. 

Many of the variations met with in codici date, no 
doubt, from the days of Dante himself. It is well known 



that the Poet occupied years and years in correcting and 
polishing what he wrote; like all great masters he was 
most painstaking in the work to which he had given 
his heart and soul, and that was to make him throughout 
all future ages the glory of the Italian name. 

It cannot be said of two readings nearly approaching 
each other/ and expressing only different shades of the 
same meaning , that one must be right and the other 
wrong, for both may be genuine, both written by the 
Poet, and equally worthy of him. The question here for 
the critic to determine is which preceded the other, and 
in what manner the second modified the first. Other va- 
riations are found in which the sense they express is so 
different that both cannot be regarded as authentic. And 
a third or intermediate class occurs where the sense re- 
maining the same in kind is so altered in degree that 
though both may be authentic, yet one is much better 
than the other. To the first class belong la and alia, 
Inf. I., 42 ; temesse and tremesse, 48 ; il turbo and al turbo, 
Inf. III., 30; con amore and per amore, Inf. V., 66] tutti 
and tu, Inf. VII. , 72; colleUe and toilette, Inf. XL, 36; 
su and gm, Inf. XXXII. , 47. To the second class belong 
la mano and la mia (faccia), Inf. XV., 29; piangeva and 
pingeva, Inf. XIX., 45 ; Giovanni and Giovane, Inf.XXVIIL, 
135; lume and lune, Inf. XXXIIL, 26. A still better il- 
lustration of this class is found in the reading of Inf. V., 
102, modo and monclo, but the latter had not been established 
when Lord Vernon wrote. The readings moto and mondo, 
Inf. II, , 60 ; porta and parte , Inf. IV. , 36 ; torrien and 
daran, Inf. XIII. , 21, belong to the third class. The 
variante lately found in a Codice of the British Museum 
Library, Parad. XXXIIL, 141, tenne for venne, though 
it alters the usual explanation of commentators, may also 
be considered as of this class. The selection of a read- 
ing must here depend upon knowledge, and that pene- 
tration into the Poet's mind and character which nothing 
but a perpetual study of his works can impart. 

Dante, in his youth, sought to conceal his appli- 
cation to literary and scientific studies by a gay demeanour 
and by joining in all the sports and pastimes befitting his 
age and quality. It is probable that he equally concealed 
from others the first rudimentary elements of his poetry, 
not choosing that anything of his should be seen and 
known that was not perfect. But be this as it may, the 
Divina Commedia reads as if it had all been struck out 
at once by some superhuman process, and not produced 



by the gradual growth of intense thought continued 
through many years. Every thing however in Dante's 
hand has perished, from the first fragments of his com- 
positions, if any such there were, in which his thoughts 
were linked together in written characters, to those more 
perfect transcripts of his poetry, the copies of the cantos 
which he made in his own neat and elegant writing, as 
Leonardo Aretino describes it, and sent to his literary 
patrons, and we shall now never know from the Poet's 
own autograph what he did write and what he did not. 

The grammatical or do is one of the most remarkable 
features of this first volume; it is a laborious and con- 
scientious developement and verbal exposition .of the text, 
more complete than that given by Gabriele Rossetti (Lon- 
dra. 1826), and not a mere paraphrase like that of the 
Conte Trissino (Vicenza. 1857). The original words are 
all preserved, and so are the parts of words, the par- 
ticles; omissions are filled up in corsivo, and where it was 
thought useful, other more familiar words are inserted in 
the same character to explain the original ones. The pri- 
mitive meanings of the more obsolete, and their analysis, 
are added in notes. Lord Vernon remarks that this in- 
terpretation is different in manner to any other with which 
he is acquainted. We must remember that it was made 
chiefly for the use of forestieri; class teachers of the poem, 
who have to expound it to students not well up in the 
language, will find it very suggestive and an excellent 
example to follow. One or two specimens will suffice 
for illustration, and may be taken anywhere, for the work 
is equally good throughout. The following has sometimes 
rather puzzled beginners; Inf. XVIII., 7 — 13. 

Quel cinghio che rimane adunque e tondo 
Tra '1 pozzo e '1 pie delFalta ripa dura, 
Ed ha distinto in dieci valli il fondo. 

Quale, dove per guardia delle mura 
Piu e piii fossi cingon li castelli, 
La parte dov' ei son rende figura; 

Tale imagine quivi facean quelli. 

"Adunque quel cinghio — area circolare — che ri- 
mane tra il pozzo e il piede delPalta e dura — petrosa 

— ripa e tondo, ed ha il suo fondo distinto — spartito 

— in dieci valli (1). Quale, dove per guardia — per 
difcsa — delle mura piu e piu fossi cingono — circon- 
dano — li castelli, quale, dico, e Ja figura ■ — forma — 
che rende — presenta alio sguardo — la parte dove 



10 

eglino — cioe quei fossi — sono; una tale immagine quivi 

— in quel luogo — face^ano — presentavano — quelli 
valli. 

(1) Dal lat. vallum, luogo chiuso da argini o bastioni. 

By some, perhaps, this rendering may be thought 
rather overcharged, but the Author tells us he preferred 
being censured for too great diligence rather than for 
too little. 

Dante had a perfect knowledge of the physical geo- 
graphy of Italy, and has embodied it in his immortal 
poem. Mountains and rivers outlive cities and towns, 
and the Poet has generally chosen the former to indicate 
the positions of the latter, which he rarely names ; this 
principle applies also to the boundaries of provinces and 
countries. 

In the sixteenth canto of the Inferno, verses 94 to 
102, we have an example of his intimate acquaintance 
with the river system of northern Italy. The passage has 
given some embarrassment to copyists, and I shall there- 
fore select it as a second illustration of Lord Vernon's 
grammatical ordo. 

Come quel nume, c' ha proprio cammino 
Prima da monte Veso inver levante 
Dalla sinistra costa d'Apennino, 

Che si chiama Acquacheta suso, avante 
Che si divalli giu nel basso letto, 
Ed a Forli di quel nome e vacante, 

Rimbomba la sovra San Benedetto 
Dall'alpe, per cadere ad una scesa, 
Ove dovria per mille esser ricetto; 

Cosi, etc. 

"Come quel nume — il Montone — , die — il quale 

— ha suo proprio cammino (per che non si unisce con altri 
fiumi) discendendo prima da monte Veso inverso il levante 
dalla sinistra costa delta catena da' Apennino, che — il 
qual flume — si chiama Acquacheta suso — nella prima 
parte del suo cor so — , avante — avanti, prima — che si 
divalli — caschi nella voile,, si precipiti — giu. nel basso 
letto, e quando e giunto a Forli, vi e vacante — mancante 

— di quel nome — cioe ha cambiato il nome di Acqua- 
cheta in quello di Montone — questo flume rimbomba la 

— in quel luogo — sovra — sopra — il Monastero di 
San Benedetto per il cadere — la caduta — che fa dall' 
alpe ad — in — una scesa, rfove dovria — dovrebbe — 
essere ricetto — ricettacolo — per mille persone, per le 



11 

grand I rcndite che possiede: come rimbomba 11 Montone, 
cosi, etc. 

Many even of the more experienced students of the 
poem will find that Lord Vernon has opened up to them 
a fullness of Dante's meaning, and a precision of language, 
of which, perhaps, they may not before have been tho- 
roughly aware, and therefore could not duly appreciate 
the archaic beauty of the Poet's expressions and the 
amount of thought contained in his brief words. 

The notes are historical and literary, brief, and much 
to the purpose, and show an intimate acquaintance with 
the literature of the period. It was the opinion of 
Count Leopardi that very few even of the Italian letterati 
could understand Petrarca without some explanation, and 
the account which he gives of his mode of rendering the 
Poet readable is quoted by Lord Vernon as applicable 
to his own method in explaining Dante. "Sometimes 1 
follow one commentator, sometimes another, often none 
at all, but always my own opinion. I never skip over 
any difficulty, though all before me have done so. The 
historical notes necessary for well understanding the text 
I give compendiously but clearly". Lord Vernon says — 
"Not desiring to please myself but to benefit others, I 
have woven together from all the commentators, ancient 
and modern, words, phrases, locutions, thoughts, every 
thing in fact that could assist me in throwing light on 
the conceptions of the Poet ; nor have I omitted to add 
something of my own". Cesare Balbo in his life of Dante 
states that Alfieri had been heard to say, at the begin- 
ning of the present century there were scarcely thirty per- 
sons in all Italy who had read the Divina Commedia, 
and now, adds Balbo, writing in 1839, "we have more 
than seventy editions". Alfieri himself was among the 
"thirty", his copy of the poem preserved in the Library- 
Museum at Montpelier attesting that he w T as an enthusiastic 
reader and admirer of Dante, some passages having many 
lines drawn beneath them. * 

The volume concludes with an index of proper names 
and of the principal subjects, together with a chronological 
series of the various editions, including translations and 
commentaries, and special remarks on particular passages, 

* The able editor of Lord Vernon's work, Sir James Lacaita, 
gives in a foot note in the second volume an instance how Italians 
deceive themselves in pretending- to read and understand Dante. A 
lady of his acquaintance assured him that she had not found it at all 
difficult. My lavandaja at Pisa once said the same thing. 



12 



amounting in all to three hundred and ninety four up to 
the year 1850. Topographical and typographical indices 
follow, in which places and printers names are equally 
honoured; finally there is a list of all those who up to 
1850 had translated the poem or written upon it. 



CHAPTER II. 

SECOND VOLUME OF LORD VERNON'S GREAT WORK. 

Life of Dante Allighieri. His ancestors as noticed by Pelli and others. 
The Elisei. Cacciaguida. Geri del. Bello. Dante's mother, Donna 
Bella. Dante's marriage. Different statements of Authors as to the 
number and names of his children. Descendants of Dante. Union of 
the Allighieri and Sereghi families. Notices of Dante's early life. 
Beatrice. Dante's priorato. His exile. Dante's love for his wife and 
family. His first refugio. 

No more valuable addition to the Literature of Dante 
and his age could have been given to the world than is 
contained in the second volume of Lord Vernon's great 
work. Yet how modestly he mentions it. — "In the se- 
cond volume will be found brought together not a few 
writings, documents, and tracts, which illustrate the bio- 
graphy and circumstances of the Poet, the history of his 
time, and of the personages mentioned in the cantica. 
The greater part of these writings, which, if they have 
no other merit, at least possess that of novelty, are the 
productions of various Italian Letterati, who, from the 
friendship they profess for me, and at my request, have 
kindly furnished me with these 1 works for the embellish- 
ment of my own' 7 . 

The six hundred and twelve pages of which this vo- 
lume consists contain a veritable encyclopaedia of history, 
geography , topography, biography, and heraldry, relating 
to Dante's era, which alone would have entitled Lord 
Vernon to the everlasting gratitude of Dante scholars. 
The volume bears the same general title as the first, with 
the addition "Doeiimmth", and its date is 1862. It is il- 
lustrated by maps, plans, and engravings of arms and 
shields. The first article is entitled: 

Memorie intomo la vita di Dante Alighieri tratte da' 

suoi Biografi antichi e modemi. 



13 

It is preceded by the — ATbero delta famiglia Afighieri, 
tratto dal Petti, e colle aggiunte del Litta. — This genea- 
logical table is supplemented, in the third volume, with 
another by Luigi Passarini, giving an account of Dante's 
posterity and the descendants of Eliseo. In the life of 
Dante, Leonardo Aretino is regarded as the normal au- 
thority, to which Boccaccio, Cinelli, and other biographers 
are subordinate: Of the first named of Cacciaguida' s two 
brothers, 

Moronto fu mio frate ed Eliseo, 
nothing whatever is known. Eliseo was an elder brother, 
and the house of Cacciaguida passed to his descendants 
and retained their name. It was situated at the corner 
of the Porta San Piero, where that street was entered from 
the Mercato Vecchio. The residence of the Allighieri, 
who were the lineal descendants of Cacciaguida, was in 
the Piazza behind the church of S. Martino del Vesco- 
vado, now Chiesa de'Buonomini; one. front faced the street 
leading to the houses of the Sacchetti, the other was in 
the street leading to the houses of the Donati and the 
Giuochi. The foundations of these houses of the Allighieri 
have recently been identified, and it is the intention of 
the Municipality of Florence to have them restored. There 
was a general impression among the early biographers of 
Dante, following his own statement of his family being 
of Roman origin, that the Elisei, from whom Cacciaguida 
was descended, were related to the Frangipani of Rome, 
and Filippo Villani in his life of Dante goes so far as 
to assign the occasion of this name having been given to 
one of his ancestors. There is, however, no positive histo- 
rical evidence to show the connexion. The Poet was 
proud of his real or supposed Roman origin, but did not 
care to carry his pedigree farther back than the fourth 
generation, 

Basti de' miei maggiori udirne questo. 
The family of the Elisei were very ancient citizens of 
Florence, and had participated in the highest honours of 
the Republic. When the Emperor Henry II., who suc- 
ceeded to the empire in 1002, came to Florence in 1019, 
among the other magnates deputed to attend him was a 
member of the Elisei family. 

Cacciaguida, born about 1106, d. 1147, left two sons, 
Preitenitto and Allighiero, both of whom are named in a 
document of December 9 th -, 1189. Allighiero I., the great- 
grandfather of Dante, was a proud man, and long detained 
in purgatory for this impenitence (Parad. XV., 91 — 3). 



14 

He had two sons, Messer Bello and Bellincione, though 
many think that a Cacciaguida ought to occupy the place 
of the latter, and that Bellincione was only Dante's great 
uncle*. One of the four sons of Messer Bello was that 
Geri del Bello whose discontented shade menaced the 
Poet because his murder by a Sacchetti had not been 
avenged. (Inf. XXIX., 19 — 36). Subsequently a nephew 
appeased the injured soul by killing a Sacchetti at the 
door of his own house. When the Duke of Athens ruled 
in Florence he insisted on the two houses, the Allighieri 
and the Sacchetti, signing a treaty of peace, which they 
did, October 10 th - 1342, and Francesco, Dante's brother, 
put his name to it. Allighiero II., the son of Bellincione, 
had two brothers, Gherardo living in 1277, and Brunetto, 
who, in the sesto di S. Piero, was chosen in the same 
year as one of the champions to accompany the Carroccio 
of the Florentines in the war of Montaperti against the 
Ghibellines. He had a son, named Cione, living in 1306. 
Dante's father, who was dead in 1283, was twice married ; 
his first wife was Donna Lupa, or Lapa, di Chiarissimo 
Cialuffi*, his second wife was Donna Bella, whose family 
is uncertain, by her he had three children, a daughter, 
name unknown, who married Leone Poggi, Durante, ab- 
breviated to Dante, and Francesco, who married Piera di 
Donato. A fourth child, Antonia, married to Lapo di 
Riccomanno, has also been assigned to him. In the ad- 
ditional notice of Dante's family by Luigi Passerini, it 
is conjectured that Donna Bella was the first wife of 
Allighiero II., and that Francesco was born of his second 
wife Madonna Lapa. Passerini's chief reasons for this 
are that Francesco is always put after Dante when the 
two names occur together, and survived him many years. 
He also thinks that he has discovered Dante's motner, 
Donna Bella, to have been a daughter of messer Durante 
di messer Scolaio degli Abbati. It was very usual, he 

* Following a statement of Cosimo della Rena in the introduction 
to his history of "de'Marchesi diToscana", it has been thought by some 
that of the two sons of Allighiero II. , Bellincione and Bello , the se- 
cond was the grandfather of Dante. But the authority of Pelli may 
be considered decisive, his words are "D' Allighiero nacque Bellincione 
e messer Bello. II primo fu Tavo di Dante, quantunque da altri sia 
stato creduto diversamente , e si trove nominato nelle vecchie carte 
fino nell'anno 1266". In the "Genealogia", printed in the work en- 
titled "Della casa di Dante", 1865, we read under Bellincione 1251 
—69, "le sue notizie sono spesso confuse coll'altre del fratello", and 
so in this table. Geri del Bello was first cousin to Dante's father, 
and this is well shown by Lord Vernon. 



15 

says, to name sons after the name of the maternal grand- 
father, the family of the Abbati lived near, and in some 
of Dante's obligations their names occur as sureties. Ac- 
cording to Passerini, Francesco had two sisters, one named 
Tana, who became the wife of Lapo di Eiccomanno, and 
another, whose name he does not recollect. After Dante's 
death Francesco had a long litigation with his nephews 
Peter and James about the division of the family pro- 
perty, which ended by a compromise, May 16 th - 1332. 

In 1291 Dante married Gemma di Manetto di Donato, 
and had by her a numerous family. In the "Genealogia", 
printed in the work entitled "Delia casa di Dante", 1865, 
live children only are named — 

Pietro or Piero, Beatrice, Jacopo, Gabbriello, and 

Antonia. 
Pelli names seven, 

Eliseo, Aligero (sic), Gabbriello, Pietro, Beatrice, 

Bernardo, and Jacopo. 
In Loi»d Vernon's table there are eight, the above seven, 
and a second daughter, name unknown, married to Pan- 
telioni. All sons and daughters with unknown names 
may be looked upon as suspicious characters and treated 
as apocryphal. But possibly this nameless maiden was 
Antonia, living in 1332, if there really was such a per- 
son. Eliseo died an infant, and so did Allighiero. If 
Maria Filelfo can be believed, the former died at eight 
years of age, cut off by a pestilence, the latter at twelve. 
Of Gabbriello nothing is known; a son of that name is set 
down in Lord Vernon's table to Bernardo as living in 1351. 
Possibly the second daughter of Dante may be Im- 
peria, so named in the tavola, published by Pietro di 
Serego-Allighieri, * the present representative of the united 
families Allighieri and Sereghi. This genealogy, emanat- 
ing from so intimate a source, may perhaps be considered 
as the most correct of any, and here only six children 
are given to the Poet. 

Eliseo, Allighiero, Jacopo, Pietro, Imperia, and 

Beatrice. 
Beatrice was living as a nun in the convent of S. Stefano 
dell'Uliva at Ravenna in 1350. Pietro accompanied his 
father in his latter days; studied law at Siena and Bo- 
logna, where he took the degree of Doctor; was at Ra- 

* "Dei Seratico e dei Serego-Allighieri cenni storici. Torino 1865. 
Passarini says that Imperia became the wife of Tano di Bencivenni 
PantaleOni. 



16 

venna with his father, on whose death he went to live at 
Verona, where he exercised the office of Judge of the 
Comune, and in 1361 was Vicario of the college of judges. 
He died at Treviso, April 21 st 1364, and was buried in 
the church of Santa Margherita. The Latin commentary 
on the Divina Commedia which goes under his name, 
and was printed by Lord Vernon, is of very doubtful 
authenticity: it seems more like the work of a religious 
recluse than that of a lawyer and man of the world. 
Pietro has the reputation of having cultivated poetry, but 
the capitolo on Dante's poem which has sometimes been 
ascribed to him is more probably the work of his brother 
Jacopo. Pietro di Dante left a numerous family, whose 
descendants, passing in a direct line through Dante II. 
(d. 1428), Leonardo (d. 1459), Pietro II. (d. 1476), 
Dante III. (d. 1510), and Pietro III., living in 1539, 
ended in a daughter, Ginevra, who, in 1549, married the 
Count Antonio Serego of Verona. Thus the two families 
of the Allighieri and the Sereghi became united, and their 
posterity have descended in a prolific progeny to the pre- 
sent day. Dante IV. was born September 7 lh - 1843, and 
was living in 1865, when his father became a patrician of 
Florence. 

It was Leonardo, the son of Dante II., who, when a 
youth, paid a visit to Florence and made the acquaintance 
of Leonardo Aretino. Of all the descendants of Peter one 
•only was a recognized poet, Dante III., podesta of 
Peschiera in 1.498, whose fortunes, or misfortunes, have 
been differently related. According to the usual account 
he left Verona disgusted at its falling into the hands of 
the imperialists by the league of Cambray, and went to 
Mantua where he died in great poverty in 1510. A touch- 
ing story is told of his misfortunes by Piero Valeriano 
(Gio van - Pietro Bolzani) in his book De infelicitate 
Litter atorum , in which he is made to reflect the exile 
sufferings of his great ancestor Dante I.; but it would 
seem this is a made up story, and that he went to Flo- 
rence instead, was well received by the Republic, and 
died there in good circumstances in November 1515. Ja- 
copo the second son of Dante, whom Passerini regarded 
as the eldest, was at Ravenna with his father. In 1326 
he took holy orders; in 1332 was in Florence; in 1341, 
according to the same authority, he was canon of the 
church of S. Georgio in the diocese of Verona; about 
1346 he left the church and married Jacopa di Biliotto 
degli Alfani — in Lord Vernon's table, however, his wife 



17 

is named Teresa, — after that he resided at Florence , and 
died about 1360, leaving two sons Bernardo (so Passerini) 
and Allighiero, also a daughter Allighiera, who was twice 
married, and died 1430. Jacopo was a poet and wrote 
the Dottrinale * ; also a capitolo in terza rima on the 
Divina Commedia. The Chiose and the Commento attri- 
buted to him are unworthy of a son of Dante, and prob- 
ably are none of his. Genealogists have taken no notice 
of his grandchildren. 

Though the life of Dante contains many interesting 
particulars, yet no additional light is thrown on contro- 
versial points. The Editor has occasionally introduced 
remarks of his own, some of which are important as ex- 
pressing his own convictions. Thus in reference to the 
somewhat mythical Beatrice of the Divina Commedia, 
after giving Boccaccio's romantic account of her, he says, 
"notwithstanding all this there are those who doubt the 
real existence of the daughter of Folco Portinari (of course 
Sir James means this only as the heroine of the poem) 
and maintain with very ingenious proofs, if not conclusive, 
that the Beatrice of Dante is nothing more than an ideal 
creation, an allegory, which in the poem is put to re- 
present occult philosophy. Whoever may desire to enter 
more ^profoundly into this argument can read the truly 
erudite work of the late Gabriele Eossetti entitled la Bea- 
trice". The Editor also expresses his doubts whether 
Dante ever became a.terziario of the Frati Minori. I think 
it more probable that he did than not; it was then a 
very usual practice with religiously minded persons of 
distinction. The cord to which Dante alludes, Inf. XVI., 
106—8, 

Io aveva una corda intorno cinta, 
E con essa pensai alcuna volta 
Prender la lonza alia pelle dipinta, 
was not, however, I'umile capestro of the preaching friars, 
though in a political sense it might signify popular elo- 
quence. Dante's father, Allighiero II., died about 1263. 
When he lost his mother is not known, she was a worthy 
woman, anoj. deserved well of her son for the care she 
had taken of his education. In all probability Dante 
went to the University of Bologna previously to becom- 
ing a pupil of the Notary to the Republic, Ser Brunetto 
Latini, whose instructions were directed to forming Dante's 

* First printed at Palermo in 1817 (Tomo III. delle Rime an- 
tiche Toscane). 



18 

political character, and training him up as a useful person 
in the state. Before entering the public service Dante very 
properly gave a guarantee of good citizenship by taking 
to himself a wife — ne cosxl pud esser perfetta, dove questo 
non sia — these are the golden words of Leonardo Aretino 
— who adds — " Dante, therefore, taking a wife, and 
living, like a good citizen, an honest and studious life, 
was much employed in the affairs of the Republic". 

It is pleasant to find the Author saying a kind word 
for Gemma, that faithful wife and exemplary mother, or 
at least throwing in a doubt against the malicious sug- 
gestions of her detractors, "ma forse senz'alcun fonda- 
mento". Dante lived in an age of invidia and calumny, 
when exasperated party feelings sought to ruin character 
as well as prospects; even the idle talk touching the 
Poet's love for other ladies had no better foundation: 

Non creda monna Berta e ser Martino. 
The numerous children which Gemma bore to her hus- 
band, and the exemplary care bestowed by her on their 
education under the most adverse circumstances , out- 
weigh all aspersions on her conjugal affection and mo- 
therly character. If what some writers profess to believe 
of the Vita Nuova were true, poor Gemma's amiable 
temper, immediately after her marriage , must have* been 
subjected to a severe trial indeed, but there is nO evi- 
dence of this. 

The well known principles of Dante, his inflexible 
love of justice, order, and propriety, even to his own de- 
triment when it came in the way of duty, might convince 
us that in those intimate relations of life on which do- 
mestic contentment and personal happiness hinge, he did 
not act otherwise than as his true heart prompted him 
and his conscience approved. The picture which the Poet 
has left us of his domestic felicity, than which nothing 
more tender, more affecting, and more devoted was ever 
written, is an everliving testimony of the love he bore 
to his wife and children — 

Tu lascerai ogni cosa diletta 

Piu caramente, e questo e quello strale 
Che l'arco dell'esilio pria saetta. 
Byron might well remark that "there is no tenderness 
equal to the tenderness of Dante" *. Gemma outlived her 
husband more than ten years. 

* See Mazzinghi — "A brief notice of some recent researches 
respecting Dante Alighieri". Last year, in a number of the "Quar- 



19 

Dante would seem to have dated his services *to 
the Republic from the memorable fight of Campaldino, 
June 11 th - 1289; though it is probable that he had joined 
the raid of the Florentines on Arezzo in May of the 
previous year. From June 15 th - 1300, to August 15 th - he 
served the office of prior, and by his firmness and energy 
ruled his colleagues as well as the state. To having filled 
this office conscientiously, and to the best of his ability, 
the Poet attributed all his subsequent misfortunes. In a 
letter, now lost, which Leonardo Aretino was privileged 
to behold, occurred the passage he has given us in his 
Life of Dante — "Tutti li mali, e tutti gPinconvenienti 
miei dagl' infausti comizj del mio Priorato ebbero cagione 
e principio: del quale Priorato, benche per prudenza io 
non fossi degno, nientedimeno per fede e per eta non ne 
era indegno: perocche dieci anni erano gia passati dopo 
la battaglia di Campaldino, nella quale la parte Ghibel- 
lina fu quasi al tutto morta e disfatta, dove mi trovai 
non fanciullo nelle arnii'\ According to Leonardo it was 
during the priorato of the Poet that the somewhat mys- 
terious meeting of the Neri took place in the church of 
the Holy Trinity at Florence, wnich in its deplorable 
consequences was certainly the more immediate cause of 
the exile of Dante and the ruin of the moderate party. 
It is an event on which authorities are much at variance, 
but probably Leonardo Aretino is right, and the words 
of Dante's letter tend to confirm this view. It would 
seem beyond reasonable doubt that the secret meeting in 
Santa Trinita led to the banishment of the chiefs of the 
Neri and Bianchi as recommended by Dante, who did 
not hesitate to include his bosom friend Guido Cavalcanti 
among the number. The Bianchi were banished to Se- 
rezzano (Sarzana), where Guido caught malaria fever, and, 
returning with his party to Florence before the Neri were 
recalled , died there in the autumn. This return of one 
party before the other was also made a subject of accu- 
sation against Dante, who then was no longer in office. 

The real cause of Dante's exile was, as Fraticelli has 
well said "the having thwarted the designs of the Neri 

terly Review", Dante's moral motives, his religious principles, and 
his love for his wife and children, were treated in a way as discre- 
ditable to the judgment of the reviewer, who by his style would seem 
to have been a clergyman, as the ignorance shown in the same article 
in reference to the Literature of the sixth centenary Dante Festival 
was disreputable in a public writer, and injurious to the high cha- 
racter of the periodical in which it appeared. 

2* 



20 

and opposed the coming of the French prince, Carlo de 
Valois, to Florence , which he well foresaw would result 
in the ruin of the city 7 ' *. 

Another point on which modern biographers and com- 
mentators differ from their predecessors is the question 
when Dante first sought an asylum at the court of the 
Scaligeri in Verona. According to Pelli it was not before 
1308; and Pietro Fraticelli is quite positive that it was 
not before 1317. Boccaccio relates that Dante , after 
wandering for some time about Tuscany, betook himself 
to Verona. But unfortunately Giovanni Boccaccio is never 
very accurate in historical matters, and appears to have 
been quite as unacquainted with the real facts of Dante's 
exile as he was with the family history of the Lords of 
Verona. The date of Dante's first condemnation is Ja- 
nuary 27 th - 1302, that of the second March 10 th -, with an 
interval of only six weeks. At the time of the first he 
was in Rome on an embassy from his party, whether he 
left the Papal court before the second condemnation reached 
him is rather doubtful, but he probably did, and was met 
by it on his journey back. But be that as it may, Al- 
berto della Scala, with whom Boccaccio says Dante first 
took refuge, died September 10 th - 1301. He was the father 
of Bartolomeo, Alboino, and Francesco, commonly called 
Can Grande. Dante speaks of Alberto somewhat con- 
temptuously, and, in 1300, as having un piede entro la 
fossa (Purg. XVIII., 121—126). This would tend to show 
that when the passage was written the Poet had received 
no peculiar favour from the family, and was under no 
obligation to any of Alberto's sons. II gran Lombardo 
(Pard., XVII., 71), by whom Dante was first received as 
a permanent guest after his unsuccessful endeavours at 
obtaining by favour or force readmission to Florence and 
the restitution of his property, was regarded by all the 
early commentators up to the time of Vellutello as the eldest 
son of Alberto, Bartolomeo, who died May 7 th - 1304**, 
but he did not bear the eagle on the scala of the Family. 
H santo uccello, the imperial symbol, was not placed there 
till 1311, in the latter part of which year Alboino died. 



* "Vita di Dante", p. 133. 
** Fraticelli says March 7 th - 



21 



CHAPTER III. 

SECOND VOLUME OF LORD VERNON'S WORK ON DANTE 
CONTINUED. 

The letter of Frate Ilario — Dante's Travels — Completion of the 
Inferno — The Messo di Bio. Death of the Poet. The titles of 
various documents — The Carta Storica-geograftca. The English 
Stipendiaries and Giovanni Aguto. The Florentine Constitution. The 
Heraldry of the Republic and Conclusion of the Volume. 

The period of Dante's first sojourn at Verona is in- 
timately connected with the story of the letter of Frate 
Ilario. To this letter Fraticelli gave entire credit. Be- 
fore leaving Italy for France in 1308 — 9, the Poet, de- 
sirous of conveying his Inferno to Uguccione della Fag- 
giuola, to whom he had dedicated it, calls on his way 
at the Monastery of Santa Croce del Corvo, 'has an inter- 
view with frate Ilario, the prior, to whom he was per- 
sonally unknown, and commits to his charge this cantica, 
with a request that, if he has time to attend to such 
studies, he will declare its meaning in explanatory words 
and notes, and then convey it to Uguccione. The story 
of itself is extremely improbable. It is contrary to the 
character of the Poet to suppose that he would desire a 
person less learned than himself to put his own con- 
struction upon the poem that Uguccione might be able 
to understand it better. The modesty of the frate is not 
less remarkable-, he writes to Uguccione to say that he 
has faithfully done what Dante asked him to do, though 
he has not fully declared the sense "sotto il velame delle 
parole nascoso" *. As if any one but the Poet himself 
knew what his hidden meaning really was. The absurdity 
of an assumption is often shown by the consequences to 
which it leads, and here the Poet is represented as re- 
questing the corruption of his own text by the glosses 
of frate Ilario. "This", says Viviani, ** "is, in my opinion, 
the cause of so many variations, all more or less ac- 
ceptable, having been introduced in the text". And he 
infers from it that it was the Poet's practice to distri- 
bute copies of his manuscript among the learned that they 

* "II quale lavoro, quantunque non abbia io appieno dichiarato 
il senso sotto il velame delle parole nascoso, l'ho pur fatto con fidelta 
e con animo volenteroso". 

** "II Dante giusta la Lezione del Codice Bartoliniano". Vol. III. 
pt. 1. p. XIV. 



22 

might improve his own phraseology — "affinche lo rifor- 
massero essi coll' introduzione di que' vocaboli de 7 diversi 
dialetti che fossero piii atti alia significazione volgare delle 
idee da lui concepite". (!) 

But there are more weighty objections than these 
against the genuineness of this letter. Admitting that the 
Inferno was finished in 1308, and that the Purgatory and 
Paradise were so far advanced that Dante had decided in 
his own mind to whom he would dedicate them, which he 
had not done, as the sequel showed, yet it is extremely 
improbable that he would so far commit himself as to 
inform a stranger of his intentions which might afterwards 
be changed, and that he should tell the friar if Uguccione 
was so pleased with this cantica as to desire copies of 
the other two, that he would find the Purgatory with the 
Marchese Moroello Malaspina of Lunigiana, and the Para- 
dise with Federico king of Sicily, of whom in the nine- 
teenth canto we read — 

Vedrassi Favarizia e la viltate 

Di quel che guarda l'isola del fuoco 

Dove Anchise fim la lunga etate. (v. 130 — 2.) 

Fraticelli has sought to defend the genuineness of this 
letter by its occurring in a codice with other letters which 
are genuine, as if such company was sufficient to make 
it so, or its spuriousness could invalidate them, as he 
pretends. Principal Centofanti of Pisa declared this let- 
ter to be "una manifesta impostura". If it were genuine 
it would tend to show that Dante had finished his Inferno 
in 1308, a favourite theory with Fraticelli. The story 
told by Boccaccio of the first seven cantos of the Inferno 
having by chance been found among Dante's papers in 
Florence, and their being sent to his friend the Marquis 
Moroello Malaspina, with whom at that time, in 1307, 
the Poet was staying, and at whose request he undertook 
to resume and continue the poem, though an incredible 
tale, may yet have an element of truth in it. It may be 
that after 1306, when Dante ceased to take part in the 
schemes and cabals of the Bianchi, he did give his mind 
again to his higher calling, and u Io dico seguitando" ', with 
which the eighth canto commences, may mark the place, 
as Boccaccio says it does, where he resumed his poetic 
labours. But when did Dante first stay at Verona ? Pro- 
bably not till after he had separated from the Bianchi and 
made a party for himself. Various are the opinions of 
biographers on this mooted point. 



23 

The last time that Dante is found acting in concert 
with the Bianchi is in the summer of 1306 at San Gaudenzio 
in Mugello, in reference to the war of Montaccianico. On 
the 27 lil - of August in this year he was at Padua. Probably 
from thence he went to Venice, with which city he was 
evidently familiar when he wrote the graphic description 
of the Arsenal (Inf. XXI. , 7—25). During his stay in 
Verona Dante was invited by Guglielmo di Castelbarco, 
the most esteemed friend and counsellor of the Scaligeri, 
to pay him a visit in his castle of Lizzana, and it was 
from this rocky height that the Poet beheld in all its 
awful grandeur that vast ruin of the massive limestone 
mountains, the Slavino di Marco, which extends for miles 
along the valley down to the winding Adige, and of 
which he has introduced a truly pictorial and scientific 
description in the twelfth canto of the Inferno (v. 4 — 9). 
If Dante did not go to Verona till 1308, as Pelli thought, 
this must have been written shortly before he left Italy 
for France, or after his return; and if he did not go to 
stay any time at Verona till 1317, as Fraticelli maintained, 
then when could it have been written? Before, he went? 
When also had Dante the time and opportunity to acquaint 
himself with the country surrounding the Lago Benaco, 
and to survey with such accuracy and to note down with 
such precision as he. has done the remarkable features of 
that interesting lake, so accurately described in the 
twentieth canto, v. 61—78? The Inferno shows no evi- 
dence of having been hastily written. But it does show 
the evidence of not having been finished till after the 
death of Pope Clement V lh - , which happened on April 20 lh - 
1314. Dante would not have predicted the death of Cle- 
ment within a given time if the event had not already 
transpired (Inf. XIX., 79—84). It is not improbable that 
the Poet's resolution to pursue his studies abroad may 
have been taken about 1307, when he determined to con- 
tinue his poetic labours, if what Boccaccio says of them 
be true. Dante remained abroad about two years, fur- 
nishing his mind with the impressions of foreign lands, 
scenes, customs, habits and usages, to introduce them in 
his poem and thus give to it a more universal character. 
The references in the Inferno to the south of France, to 
London, to Flanders, and to Cologne on the Rhine, as 
found at Inf. IX., 112; XII., 120; XV., 4; XXIII. , 63; 
almost serve to trace the Poet's route, and to show that 
this cantica was finished only after his return by way of 
Germany from his visit to Paris, when the advent of the 



24 

Emperor, Henry VII. , for a time Dante's supreme poli- 
tical hope, brought him back to Italy. This well mean- 
ing prince was regarded by the Poet and many others 
as the long expected Saviour sent to heal the wounds of 
their suffering country, and to establish good government 
in Italy — as the sword of the Lord which was to cut 
short every tyranny, and to root out all political evil — 
the Messo di Bio so ardently desired. Vain hopes ! 

La spada di quassu. non taglia in fretta, 
Ne tardo, ma che al parer di colui 
Che desiando o temendo Faspetta. 

If any one individual can be regarded as fulfilling the 
character of the Messo di Bio, he must be the Poet him- 
self acting on many through successive ages by the in- 
fluence of his eloquence and the transforming power of 
his word. The impatient Ghibelline might ask the Em- 
peror "Art thou he that should come, or look we for 
another?" But time has shown that Dante was himself 
the u vas d' elezione" , ordained to be the prophet and the 
regenerator of the Italian people. For as the divine mis- 
sion of the Redeemer is demonstrated by its spiritual 
fruits, so is that of Dante by its living effects. He might 
look up for a time to the Emperor, as he subsequently 
did to Uguccione della Faggiuola, and afterwards to Can 
Grande, but in none of these were his expectations ful- 
filled. Yet Dante was ever hopeful and certain to the 
last. He might exclaim — 

O ciel, nel cui girar par che si creda 
Le condizion di quaggiu trasmutarsi, 
Quando verra per cui questa disceda? 

Purg. XX., 13—15. 
But his confidence in the Divine order never failed him — 
Ch' io veggio certamente , e pero il narro, 
A darne tempo, gia stelle propinque, 
Sicure d'ogni intoppo e d'ogni sbarro. 

Purg. XXXIIL, 40-2. 

This was the true spirit of a prophet, having his vision 
there, fixed 

Ov'ogni cosa dipinta si vede. 

In the slow and complicated course of human events, the 
agents employed in the moral training of the world all 
contribute, with the certainty of unfailing laws, to work 
out a definite and desirable result. This the Poet well 
knew ; the Philosophy of History showed him that it was so. 



25 

The battle of the Val di Nievole, fought August 29 lh - 
1315, in which the Guelphs and Florentines were routed 
with great slaughter by Uguccione was the last delusive 
smile of Fortune on that distinguished warrior. In the 
following year Dante and Uguccione met at the court of 
Can Grande, the willing recipients of his generous pro- 
tection. In 1317 we find Dante at Padua with his friend 
Giotto, then engaged in decorating with frescoes the 
chapel of the Arena belonging to the Scrovigni family. 
In August 1319 Uguccione fell a victim to fever caught 
at the siege of Padua, where he commanded the army of 
Can Grande. Dante's own time was now approaching, 
and he seems to have been aware of it, seeking in the 
retirement of religious houses favourably situated among 
Nature's fairest scenes, the conditions conducive to those 
lofty contemplations of his ideal Paradise which have 
rendered the concluding cantos of his third cantica su- 
premely inspired. 

• In 1320 the Poet took up his residence in Ravenna, 
where Guido Novello da Polenta, the Lord of that city, 
had with much solicitude invited him. In the following 
year he also, like Uguccione, fell a victim to fever in his 
zeal to serve his friend and protector. The Venetians 
threatened to make war on Ravenna, and Dante under- 
took an embassy to persuade them from it. The Venetian 
senators refused to hear the ambassador of Guido be- 
cause they were afraid of him; they dreaded lest his elo- 
quence should disarm their wrath, and turn them from 
their purpose. For the same reason the Republic would 
not allow Dante to return by sea, lest, on his passage, he 
should board their admiral, Ammirato, to. whom they had 
deputed the power of making peace or war, and convert 
him into a friend. In early life Brunetto Latini had 
taught his pupil that eloquence was more powerful than 
fleets and armies, and the Venetians evidently thought so. 
Guide's ambassador was obliged to return by land, caught 
marsh fever on the way, and died September 14 lh - 1321, 
aged fifty six years. Thus the last act in the political 
career of Daiite Allighieri, on the authority of Filippo 
Villani, proved as honorable to the Poet as it was fatal 
to the man. 

The life of Dante is followed by the three con- 
demnations — that of January 27 th - 1302 ; that of March 10 th - 
of the same year; and that of November 6 th - 1315. In 
each of which Dante's casato is differently spelled; we 
have Alleghieri, Allighieri, and, lastly, Adhegheri. In the 



26 

third volume, Luigi Passerini, in his brief remarks on 
this disputed point, gives his voice for the single Z, pre- 
ferring the dictum of Audin des Rians, and the usage of 
Peter Fraticelli, to the higher authorities of Pelli, Sco- 
lari, and Torri ; to whom he should have added Dionisi, 
Giuliani, Witte, Scarabelli and the Conte Serego, who have 
all declared for the double 11. In the first condemnation 
Dante is one of four only, in the second of fifteen, in the 
third his sons are included along with himself, and many 
of the Portinari family also. Next we have the legal 
documents of the peace which Dante negotiated in Octo 
ber 1306, between the Malaspina family and the bishop 
of Luni, along with the Albero of the family. Two chro- 
nological tables of much importance follow: 

Tavole Cronologiche Letterarie dot secolo VI. al 
sec. XIIL, p. 63-78. 

Tavole Cronologiche Istoriche del secolo di Dante 
p. 79—102. 
Then come — The oration of Messer Farinata degli Uberti 
to king Manfred; the address of Tegghiaio degli Adimari 
to the senate and people of Florence; and the discourse 
of Farinata in the council of the Ghibellines, held at Em- 
poli in 1260, when it was proposed to raze Firenze to 
the ground (Inf. X., p. 91—3). p. 103—122 

Ma fu' io sol cola, dove sofferto 

Fu per ciascun di torre via Fiorenza, 
Colui che la difese a viso aperto. 

We have next — The letter written in Rome, January 23. 
1 286, by the archbishop of Pisa, Ruggieri, to the preach- 
ing friars of that city ; with a facsimile of it, and remarks 
by the Cav. Francesco Bonaini p. 123 — 134. Then fol- 
low — ; The instructions given by Robert king of Jeru- 
salem and Sicily to the ambassadors about to proceed to 
the court of Clement V., to show that the coronation of 
Henry VII. as king of the Romans was invalid, along 
with the reply of the Emperor p. 135 — 151. 

King Robert of Naples sent his brother John with 
300 cavalry to Rome to join the Orsini and oppose the 
entry of the Emperor, and they did so at the Ponte Molle. 
This force also occupied St. Peter's and all the Vatican, 
so that the coronation had to be transferred to St. Gio- 
vanni Laterano. 

The Carta Storica-Geografica which follows is a most 
carefully constructed map showing the extent and boun- 
daries of the various Lordships, Republics, and Communi- 



27 

ties existing in upper and middle Italy, of which, in the 
time of Dante, there were upwards of a hundred. The 
kingdom of Naples belonged entirely to the Angioini, 
and Sicily to the Aragonesi: there were no independent 
Signorie in these two kingdoms. The description of the 
Italy of Dante's time occupies seven chapters, and ex- 
tends from p. 161 to p. 234. 

I. CONDIZIONI P0L1TICHE D 1 ITALIA AI TEMPI DI 
DANTE. 

Capitolo I. Preliminari . . . . . . . .p. 163—170. 

Capitolo II. L'atto della Lega Lombarda . p. 171 — 180. 

Capitolo III. L'atto della Lega Guelfa Toseana . p. 181 — 188. 
Capitolo IV. La Lega Ghibellina Toseana. La 

Guerra: Battaglia di Montaperti etc. p. 189 — 199. 
Capitolo V. La Lega Ghibellina Italiana. Ghibel- 

lini: Battaglia di Campaldino etc. . p. 200 — 209. 
Capitolo VI. Le Milizie dei Comuni Italiani . . p. 210 — 225. 
1. Primordii clelle Milizie cittadine. % II Carroc- 
cio. 3. Le Societa delle armi del Popolo di Lucca. 
4. Le Compagnie del Popolo di Pisa. 5. Le Com- 
pagnie del Popolo di Siena. 6. Le Compagnie del 
Popolo di Firenze. Ordine delle Venti Com- 
pagnie della Milizia Fiorentina nel 1304 * . . . p. 221—225. 

Sextu Ultrani quatuor Societates. 

Sextu Scti Petri Scheradii . quatuor Societates. 
Sextu Scti Prancatii . . . tres Societates. 
Sextu Portae Domus . . . tres Societates. 
Sextu Portae Sancti Petri . tres Societates. 
Capitolo VII. Le Milizie Stipendiarie Straniere . . p. 226—234. 

1. Le compagnie c i capitani Venturieri. 

2. Codice Militare Pisano per gli Stipendiarii Stranieri. 

3. Codice Militare per gli Stipendiarii del Comitne di Firenze. 

4. La Milizia degli Ungheri. 

5. La Milizia degli Inglesi. 

Of all the stipendiaries who sold themselves to fight 
the battles of the fourteenth century in Italy, none have 
left so lasting a fame behind them as the English. Nor 
has any leader of these hired bands ever attained to such 
good fortune as the redoubtable English Captain, John 
'Hawkswood, alias Giovanni Aguto. The English mer- 

* These are taken from the Archivio delle Riformagioni ; Provi- 
sion! del 1304; and are given according to the Sestieri with their re- 
spective banners. 



28 

cenaries are described as young men, most of them born 
and bred in the long French wars, used to blood and 
rapine, reckless of their lives, and ever ready for any- 
thing. At the same time well under discipline, and obe- 
dient to orders. They were armed with long heavy 
lances, swords, and daggers: also, it would seem, with 
bows and arrows — and carried, besides, short scal- 
ing ladders , which they used in a dexterous way for 
mounting the walls of towers, one ladder hooking on to 
another. They wore armour which was always kept well 
burnished, that its brightness might flash fear into the 
eyes of the enemy. When fighting on foot they formed 
in circle, and lowering their lances, advanced at a slow 
and steady pace, with terrible shouts, carrying all before 
them. Nothing in fact could resist these formidable wea- 
pons , which were so heavy that two and sometimes three 
pair of hands assisted in supporting them, spearing their 
adversaries as easily as they would spike wild boars. 
On horseback they fought in a loose and scattered man- 
ner. Each kept two pages to look after his arms and 
horses. Their expeditions were mostly undertaken by 
night. When off duty their manners were free and over- 
bearing. They were known as the English lances, be- 
fore their time the hired cavalry were called barbute or 
bandiere. Now a few words about their leader, Giovanni 
Aguto, or Acuto, which, though not a literal, is yet a 
characteristic rendering of John Hawks wood. Sir John 
was the son of a tanner in the City of London, and Ful- 
ler says that, being bound apprentice to a tailor, he turned 
his needle into a sword. He first made himself famous 
in the French wars of Edward III., and was knighted. 
John was, by profession, a fighting man, and by fight- 
ing he lived; it mattered not on which side he fought so 
long as he was well paid for it — Guelphs or Ghibel- 
lines — Popes or their opposers — were all the same to 
him. In 1369 he laid siege to Urban V., mewed up in 
Montefiascone ; and later in his life made war on Fienza 
by order of the Cardinal Legate. He became Captain 
general of the Florentines in their war against Gian Ga- 
leazzo Visconti of Milan, and remained in the service of 
the Eepublic up to the peace of Genoa in 1392, when he 
retired from business. 

The Eepublic treated him handsomely, made him a 
citizen, and gave him a villa to live in at Montecchio, 
or at San Donato in Polverosa, where he ended his 
days. An anecdote is related of him that, being ac- 



29 

costed one day by two begging friars with the usual 
pious salutation "peace be with you", Sir John turned 
on them sharply and replied — "may God take your 
living ' from you". The poor friars, terrified by the 
words and manner of the man of war, meekly asked — 
"Monsignor, why do you say so to us ? " "Why did you 
say so to me?" rejoined Aguto — "We thought we had 
spoken well", stammered out the friars — "What! when 
you say to me may God take your means of subsistence 
from you ; do you not know that I live by war and that 
peace would be my ruin, yet you say to me ' peace be 
with youV 

Next in order we have: 

II. ALCUNI PARTICOLARI DELLA COSTITUZIONE 

FIORENTINA. p. 235. 

Capitolo I. II Govemo clella Bepublica .... p. 237—244. 
> 1. I Priori delle Arti. 

2. I consigli. 

3. Lo Squittinio. 

4. Le Borse e gli Accoppiatori. 

5. Lo Specchio. 

6. Veto di parte Guelfa. 

7. Le Arti. 

8. L'Arte de' Medici e Speziali. 

Capitolo II. Amministrazione della Giustizia . . p. 245 — 247. 

1. II Podesta. 

2. II Capitano del Popolo. 

3. L'Esecutore degli ordinamenti della Giustizia. 
Capitolo III. II magistrate di parte Guelfa ... p. 248—264. 

1. Sua origine e istituzione. 

2. Le Imprese contro i Ghibellini. 

3. Le Paci — le Feste e la Mostra solenne delle Arti. 

4. Corruzione della parte Guelfa. 

5. La Legge del 1347 (Gennaio 26. 1346, stile Fior.) e la 

riforma del 1349 (14 luglio). 

6. L' Officio della Parte, capo della setta Oligarchica. 

7. Riforma dei 27 Agosto 1354 e la legge del 1358. 

A map of Florence of the third Circle follows with illustrations 
and descriptions which occupy seven chapters, preceded by a few 
preliminary remarks. Malespini is here the chief authority. The 
arrangement of the streets, churches, houses, etc. is alphabetical. 

Avviso Preliminare p. 267—269. 

Capitolo I. Dei tre primi recinti murali di Firenze. 
Delle Porte e Postierle del terzo cer- 
chio. Dei Ponti ..p. 271—277. 



30 

Capitolo II. Delle Vie, Vicoli e Chiassi . ... p. 278 — 294. 

Capitolo III. Delle Piazze : . . p. 295—301. 

Capitolo IV. Delle Chiese, Ospedali edaltriluoghipii p. 302— 317. 
Capitolo V. Delle Case ed altri pubblici e privati 

Edifici p. 318—340. 

Elenco xmmerico delle Case .... p. 341 — 343. 

Capitolo VI. Delle Torri p. 344—345. 

Capitolo VII. Delle Loggie p. 346. 

The Heraldic Illustrations and historical notices which 
succeed occupy nearly one half of the volume ; from p. 347 
to p. 612. 

Illustrazioni Araldiche contenenti Le Armi delta Re- 
jmbblica di Firenze; de' suoi Istituti Civile e Militari; 
e delle sue principali Famiglie. 
These are preceded by two letters to Lord Vernon, one 
from Luigi Passerini, dated Firenze April 19. 1851. The 
other from Giuseppe Antinori dated a week earlier. This 
most complete treatise comprises not only the arms of 
the families mentioned by Dante, but also those of other 
families connected with them. The drawings were all 
taken from genuine sources. 

Florence was originally a Roman colony, and was 
known in its early days as la piccola Roma. From the 
first its arms were a white lily on a red ground, the lily 
being probably in reference to the flowery mead on which 
it was situated, abounding in "iiori e gigli", and possibly 
the ground to the sanguinary character of its early pa- 
tron Mars. Some writers, however, consider the flower 
to have been il ' Ghiaggiuolo , known to botanists as the 
Iris Florentina. In July 1251, when the Guelphs drove 
out the Ghibellines, the colours were changed, the lily 
became red, the ground white *, to this Cacciaguida alludes 
when, speaking of the good old times, he says — 

che il giglio 
Non era ad asta mai posto a ritroso, 
Ne per division fatto vermiglio. 

Parad. XVL, 152-4. 

The Ghibellines, however, are stated by Rostrelli 
{Firenze antica e modema, Tom. V., p. 240), to have retained 
the original device and to have added, in a golden chief, 
the double necked imperial eagle. The shield divided per 
pale, red and white, became the arms of the Comune when, 
in the eleventh century, Fiesole was conquered and united 
to Florence. 



31 

In the 13 th - cent, the Guelphs, to please Pope Cle- 
ment IV th -, set up his arms also, a black eagle on a white 
ground standing on a dragon, and holding in its mouth 
a small red lily. At the same time, and probably be- 
fore, the Guelphs, to show their devotion to the church, 
carried on a red ground the cross keys of St. Peter. 
When, in 1267, the Florentines gave the lordship of the 
City to Carlo d'Anjou, they also adopted, as is supposed, 
his arms, a blue ground serne'e with golden lilies, and a 
red label to show his family status, as a younger brother 
of Louis IX. In 1282, when the constitution of Florence 
became more democratic, and i Priori delle Arti were 
established, the Signoria set up for their arms the word 
Libert as in golden letters on a blue ground. From the 
13 th - cent., the red cross on a white ground was the 
symbol of the popular goverment, and, in 1293, when a 
Gonfaloniere di Giustizia was elected, these arms were 
assigned to him. The ancient Florentines, who regarded 
themselves as the followers of Mars, if not his children, 
being born under his influence, maintained a correspond- 
ing character, and showed an innate disposition to make 
war on their neighbours, and sometimes on one-another. 
The Carroccio with its lofty banner was their sacred car, 
a very ark of the covenant in carrying out their sangui- 
nary designs. We have here a characteristic represen- 
tation of it with the storm of war raging wildly around. 
The oxen who drew it, like the guards who defended it, 
were marked to be slain. The Martinello, which consisted 
Of a wooden frame bearing a large bell, and mounted on 
a cart, was drawn by led horses, and told of the strife 
that was intended. The banners of the citizen soldiers, 
as recorded by Giovanni Villani, the Arms of the Sestieri, 
and the flags , twenty in number , of their military com- 
panies, are also given, and the volume concludes with the 
heraldic bearings of one hundred and two Florentine and 
other families, alphabetically arranged: 

Ma perche piene son tutte le carte 
Ordite a qaesto volume secondo, 
Non mi lascia piu ir lo fren dell' arte. 



32 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE THIRD VOLUME OF LORD VERNON'S WORK ON 
DANTE. THE ALBUM. 

Object of the Album. The part taken in it by Mr. Kirkup of Flo- 
rence. The Life of Lord Vernon by the Editor. Generosity of Lord 
Vernon. Note of the Portinari family. The Portrait of Dante. 
Letter of Mr. Kirkup on the discovery of the Portrait. Description 
of the fresco in .which, it occurs. Objections to its being by Giotto 
answered. The mask of Dante. 

In referring to his third volume Lord Vernon says 
in his address to the reader — "I have thought it de- 
sirable to unite with the work a third volume of en- 
gravings of various subjects , which besides rendering it 
more ornamental, may, in many respects, be considered 
useful. For as they represent portraits, paintings, plans, 
and, above all, historical monuments, they illustrate the 
history of the 14 th - Cent., the biography of Dante, and 
the particulars of his poem". Lord Vernon also makes a 
graceful allusion to Rossini for having, at his expressed 
wish, kindly set to music the most touching part of the 
Episode of Francesca da Rimini. 

This volume bears on its title page the date of Dante's 
great Festival in Florence, May 15. 1865, at which Lord 
Vernon's presence was greatly desired, and the regret of 
his friends at his absence was increased by the cause of 
it. On this occasion he was made a Cavalier of the order 
of the Saints Maurice and Lazarus. In the Avvertimento 
by the Editor, we read something more of Lord Vernon's 
generous intentions, and of the vicissitudes which befell 
the work in its progress. One motive which the noble 
Dantophilist had in view was to place before the reader 
correct representations of the places and objects to which 
Dante alludes, another was to render the conceptions of 
the Poet more vividly understood. For these purposes 
the Cav. Iller and Sig. Gaetano. Grossi were sent about 
Italy to take views with the daguerreotype; the process of 
photography, unfortunately was not then known. The ser- 
vices of the celebrated architect Canina were also enlisted 
in the work, as were those of the talented engraver La- 
sinio of Pisa, and of our own Finden. Among these, or 
rather above them all, our countryman Mr. Seymour Kir- 
kup of Florence holds the place of honour, and was for 



33 

several years the right hand of Lord Vernon in the pro- 
duction of this Album. The names of other artists men- 
tioned by the Editor, are Pietro Folo of Rome ; Tito della 
Santa of Pisa; and Girolamo Tubino ; director of the Aca- 
demy of the Fine Arts in Genova. 

More than five and twenty years have elapsed since 
the Album was put in hand; during that quarter of a' 
century many are the mishaps that have overtaken it in 
the mislaying of drawings and engravings, some of which 
disappeared quite, so that all hope of continuing the 
work through the second and the third cantica, which 
was the original intention, had to be abandoned. 

This address is followed by the portrait of Lord Ver- 
non, taken about twenty years ago, and a short biogra- 
phical notice. His Lordship was born June 22. 1803, at 
Stapleford Hall, in the county of Nottingham, and was 
the fifth Baron who bore the title. An ancestor, Sir 
George Vernon, of Haddon Hall, in the 16 th - cent., was po- 
pularly called "The king of the Peak". Before commencing 
his political career, Lord Vernon, taking example from 
Dante, married his first wife, by whom he had Augustus 
Henry, now the sixth Baron, born in Rome 1829. In 1830 
he entered Parliament as member for Derbyshire, and 
after the passing of the Reform bill, which he supported, 
the county becoming divided into north and south, he re- 
presented the latter division until 1835, when, on the death 
of his father, he was called to the upper house. Lord Ver- 
non was a capital shot, and twice carried off the first 
prize in Switzerland, at Coira in 1840, and at Basle in 
1850. In October 1853 he had the misfortune to lose 
his first wife; six years after, in 1859, he married again. 
In this year he formed a company of riflemen at Sud- 
bury, and introduced the Swiss system of marking, a 
practice subsequently adopted by the National Rifle Asso- 
ciation. One trait only of his generous character is here 
introduced, but it is enough to show what manner of man 
Lord Vernon was. In 1862, when, on account of the 
American war and the consequent deficiency in the supply 
of cotton, the manufacturing population of Lancashire was 
reduced to great misery, Lord Vernon came forward as 
one of the first to contribute largely to the public sub- 
scription raised for their relief; and when the suffering 
and distress increased, and especially in the neighbour- 
hood of Stockport and Poynton, from whence he derived 
a considerable part of his revenue, he left his splendid 
residence of Sudbury Hall, and retired to a small house 



34 

in the village, that he might be the better able to assist 
and alleviate those whose daily labours had contributed to 
his wealth. Nor would he permit the parish in any way 
to become burdened with their relief , but took the entire 
expense of their support upon himself. "So long as my 
means last", said he in December 1862, "those who have 
contributed by their labour to my prosperity, shall now 
in their adversity be sustained and comforted by me 
alone". Lord Vernon's admiration for Dante was not a 
mere transient passion, but a permanent love, which, from 
his first early acquaintance with Italy, lasted throughout 
an entire life, and he annually set apart a portion of his 
income for the advancement of Dante studies. The noble 
library at Sudbury Hall attests, along with his numerous 
publications, the zeal with which he cultivated Italian Li- 
terature. In the account which follows of Dante's family, 
published by Passerini on the occasion of the great festival 
in 1865, we read in a note that the Portinari are be- 
lieved to have been descended, ab antico, from Fiesole. 
The antiquaries tell us that they had the custody of the 
Por. San Piero, near to which were their houses; their 
arms were a door guarded by two lions rampant sable 
on a golden ground, but as this door stood on three steps 
it was a porticella only, and more like the door of a tower 
or convent than the gate of a city. The name comes, it 
is said, from a certain Portinaio di Fulcone (Folco), whose 
name is found in a document of 1178. They were already 
separated into different branches when the divisions of 
Guelphs and Ghibellines arose in Italy. Some of them 
were among the banished Ghibellines in 1268. Folco, the 
son of Ricovero, was a Guelph, and a very rich man, who 
made a good use of his wealth by founding in 1285 the 
Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. He married Cecilia di 
Gherardo Caponsacchi, by whom he had a daughter Bice, 
married to M. Simone de'Bardi. In a letter of Dec 1 *. 28. 
1857 my friend, Mr. Kirkup, states that Folco was one of 
the priori of Florence in 1282 ; but in what year he began 
the building of the hospital is rather doubtful. In the 
archives of the hospital the first document is a contract 
of 1285 for the purchase of a piece of land of the Benin- 
casa family, and the padre Rica in his v Notizie storiclie 
delle Chiese Florentine", Tom. VIII., thinks that Folco be- 
gan to build either in that year or the following. It is 
in this work that the will of Folco Portinari is given at 
length, in which he leaves fifty Florentine lire to his 
daughter Bice. The will is dated January 15 th - 1287: 



35 

Folco died December 31 st - 1289; and Bice on the 9 th - of 
June in the following year. 

In the Sentence of banishment of March 18 lh - 1302 (3), 
several individuals of this name occur: The family existed 
as late as 1772. The Donati became extinct in Giovanni 
di Piero, in 1616. 

The Album contains one hundred and twelve plates, 
on several of which two or more subjects are represented. 
The first eleven relate more especially to the personal 
history of Dante. The twelfth plate refers to Landino, 
whose handsome folio edition of the Divina Commedia, 
1481, was the first ever published in Florence. The re- 
maining one hundred plates are views of localities men- 
tioned by Dante , portraits, and objects of antiquity which 
have reference to the text, and designs to illustrate the 
conceptions of the Poet. 

The frontispiece to the volume is the portrait of 
Dante discovered, through the penetration of Mr. Kirkup, 
in the chapel of the palace of the Potesta, formerly il Bar- 
gello, and already alluded to. The history of its disco- 
very is related as follows in a letter from Mr. Kirkup, 
dated February 9 th - 1857. 

"The history of the Bargello portrait is this. I had 
returned from S. Croce, where I had been seeking that 
portrait mentioned by Vasari, and which I found had 
been destroyed by him, and much besides for his own 
baroque altars. My books Avere on my table, and I 
had a visit from a Piedmontese refugee named Bezzi, 
who had brought me a letter from Eastlake. I told him 
of my disappointment, but added that there was one hope 
yet, the Chapel of the Pal. del Podesta, which had been 
whitewashed. He seemed so interested that I proposed 
our joining to get it recovered. His joy made me ask 
him if he had ever heard of it , and he said he had not. 
I showed him my authorities, Villani , Filelfo , Vasari &c. 
The next day he called to ask if I had any objection 
to admit Mr. Wilde, an American friend of mine and 
his, to join us in the undertaking, and I agreed to it. 
The editor of Filelfo, the abbate Moreni, had mentioned 
a Sig. Scotto, who was willing to undertake the job. 
We found him too engaged and too old, and he recom- 
mended Sig. Marini * , with whom we made an agree- 
ment . for 240 scudi to clear the whitewash off the cha- 
pel whether he found Dante or not. Bezzi drew up 

* Sig. Antonio Marini, one while Professore. 



36 

our petition (being an Italian), and it was agreed to after 
some hesitation, and Marini went to work. He made 
two holes in the wall to hold two beams for his scaf- 
fold. Luckily Dante was not there or he would have 
been destroyed. I was obliged to threaten not to pay 
him if he made any more holes. He was impertinent, 
but made no more and used trestles. After he had 
worked some weeks the government stepped in. They 
were afraid we should make some claims to it and carry 
it away, or they were ashamed of foreigners doing what 
was their duty, and we could only prevail on them to 
do it on our terms, which they did. Sig. Bezzi went 
back to England, and some time afterwards I heard that 
Marini had found Dante. I went to see and found a 
large hole where the eye had been. 'What a pity 7 , said 
I, 'era un chiodo 7 , he replied. How could he tell? He 
had drawn it out instead of cutting it, and had brought 
away a bit of the wall , about 3 inches by 2 , which 
went on crumbling away by the wiseacres putting their 
fingers in, <ch' c' e una buca 7 ! After a year they em- 
ployed Marini to fill it up and paint a new eye, which 
he did, too small and too near the nose, and then touched 
up the rest of the face to match it, to the great loss of 
the likeness and colour. He likewise changed the form 
and colour of the capuccio, and as Dante was dressed 
in red, green, and white, the colours of Beatrice in the 
Purgatory, and' of the giovane Italia of present times, 
the green was changed to chocolate colour, and so it 
remains till some one shall be allowed to take off his 
mealy tempera paint by applying a wet cloth. The ori- 
ginal fresco seemed as hard as an enamel, and the co- 
lour like Guido and as good. They would not allow 
me to make a drawing from it, but I bribed the goaler 
of the prison to lock me up for a morning, and I made 
both a drawing and a tracing before the repaint, and I 
copied it and sent it to Eossetti, who was so pleased that 
he dedicated his great work in five volumes to me; 
his History of the Platonic school of Poetry in Italy 
from Frederic II. to "Magalotti. We had been some 
time in correspondence." 

Mr. Kirkup states in a subsequent letter, March 18 lh - 
1857, that Bezzi left Florence before Dante had been found, 
and so did Mr. Wilde the American. Sig. Aubrey Bezzi 
had been a music master in Plymouth, and married the 
widow of a sea captain with ^500 a year; he became 
a protege of Sir Charles Eastlake, who made him his as- 



37 

sistant secretary in the Fine Arts Commission, and when 
he heard that Dante had come to light he claimed all the 
credit to himself and persuaded Sir Charles to make known 
his merits to the world. Years afterwards when some 
Italians had published the truth, Bezzi put forward Mr. 
Wilde's name as more worthy of honour in this matter, 
and the British public, disposed to give credit to the most 
barefaced assertions, for a long time ignored the origina- 
tor of the discovery. In this letter, Mr. KirkUp also re- 
marks — "It was the government which carried on what 
we had begun, and succeeded, and paid Marini. We, the 
three foreigners, began it, and gave it up unwillingly to 
the government. If it had been left to me it should not 
have been spoiled by repainting it, but I had no control, 
and my associates had left Florence before it was found". 
In a letter of May 27 th - 1857, Mr. Kirkup states, "I saw 
Marini restoring the eye under the direction and instruction 
of Sig. Nerli, the minister of public works, whom I saw 
sitting by him and teaching him ! " In a subsequent letter, 
April 29 th - 1860, Mr. Kirkup writes — "we may thank 
Sig. Marini for Dante's portrait being without the eye. 
The only authentic portrait. It was sacrilege to attempt 
to supply one — a positive forgery which they have com- 
mitted, and as one sin leads to another, they have daubed 
the rest of the face to match the new eye, and have to- 
tally lost the expression and character. They have changed 
the forms as well as the colour, and it is to be hoped 
some day that a careful restorer will remove their dis- 
temper with a wet cloth and bring back what there is and 
blot out the forgery. The Arundel print is a fine thing. 
It has the expression of the original of Giotto , really 
beautiful. Raphael would have valued it. I traced it and 
drew it from the original in its pure state, and the ab- 
sence of the eye is one pledge of its authenticity, and I 
would not endanger it by drawing an eye of my own; 
any body may do it on the print and may try it by 
sticking an eye on it if they like. For my part I prefer 
the relique such as it is, in its genuine state, and no in- 
terpolations. See what their meddling has done, and com- 
pare that print with the fresco as it now stands, or with 
the many prints and copies which have been made since 
the restoration. Lord Vernon said he almost cried when 
he compared it with the fresco, and I dont* wonder. That 
print is the only likeness left which is certain. The mask 
may be, but it is not cited in its time". The original 
tracing of the portrait was given, I believe, by Mr. Kirkup 



38 

to Lord Vernon, who presented it to the Arundel Society. 
In a letter of Dec. 28 th - 1857 Mr. Kirkup, speaking of 
Dante's face, says, "it is so smooth that Giotto does not 
make him seem more than 28, I dare say he was more". 
The Frontispiece has a brief note in one corner in the 
writing of Mr. Kirkup — "Drawn frqni the original (by 
Giotto) by Seymour Kirkup, the first promoter of the 
discovery, and traced on the Fresco in the Palace of the 
Podesta in Florence before the painting was retouched". 
The date of the discovery was July 21 st - 1840. 

On plate I, also from a drawing by Mr. Kirkup, is 
shown the whole of the fresco which remains on the end 
wall of the chapel *. It represents a Paradise with God 
the Father in a glory of angels above, the globe at his 
feet, and rows on rows of male and female saints at the 
sides below. In the foreground are two groups of figures 
standing and looking towards each other. In the centre 
of the wall is a window, and beneath it is the Fleur-de- 
Lis of Florence with the remains of two supporters hold- 
ing wands. On the right of the window is the figure of 
a Pope, or Cardinal, with the Podesta (?) kneeling at his 
side. On the left is a crowned figure of an Emperor or 
King, next to whom stands Dante. A kneeling figure on 
this side corresponds to the one on the opposite. All the 
other figures are grave and serious men, members of the 
religious orders, magistrates, and other public functiona- 
ries. It is a work which no biographer of the artist who 
painted it could in justice omit to mention. Vasari, in 
speaking of the felicitous manner in which Giotto painted 
his portraits, says — "il quale fra gli altri ritrasse, come 
ancor oggi si vede nella cappella del palagio del Podesta 
di Firenze, Dante Alighieri coetaneo ed.amico suo gran- 
dissimo e non meno famoso poeta, che si fusse ne' mede- 
simi tempi Giotto pittore" .... "Nella medesima cap- 
pella e il ritratto, similemente di mano del medesimo, di 
Ser Brunetto Latini maestro di Dante, e di M. Corso Do- 
nati gran cittadino di que' tempi". There can be no mis- 
take here as to the manner of the painting, that it was 
a grand wall fresco, and not a mere tavola, as some have 
since pretended, and affirmed that it was burnt in the 
fire of February 28 th - 1332, which destroyed the roof of 
the old palace and portions of the new. Villani's words 
are — "E poi addi 28 di Febbrajo la notte vegnente 

* The process of obliteration by the whitewash is supposed to 
have taken place when the palace was converted into a prison, and 
the chapel made into cells, 



39 

s'apprese il fuoco ncl palagio del comune, ove abita il 
podesta, e arse tutto il tetto del palagio vccchio e le due 
parti del nuovo dalle prime volte in suso. Per la qual 
cosa s' ordino per lo comune, che si rifacesse tutto in volte 
infino a' tetti". Lib. X., cap. 184. This would seem to 
refer to the part of the palace occupied by the podesta, 
and not so much to the chapel. Another circumstance 
urged by those who attribute this fresco to a pupil of 
Giotto, one Daddi ; is, that beneath the kneeling figure of 
the supposed podesta is a shield with the arms of messer 
Tedice de 1 Fieschi, who held that office in 1358 — 9. But 
if this fire destroyed the original fresco in 1332, as Giotto 
did not die till 1336 , there was still time enough for him 
to repaint it. The arms are a rifacimento painted in part 
over the figure (so Kirkup). The objection of the Edi- 
tor that not before 1342, when the sentences against 
Dante were cancelled, and his memory restored to favour, 
could he be represented among the great men of his time, 
is of little weight, for all animosity against the Poet 
ceased with his death, and even before that the Floren- 
tines were proud of him. The subject of the lower part 
of the picture has been supposed to represent a confe- 
rence, or pacification of parties, b\it it has a very allegor- 
ical character, almost as much so as the Paradise over 
it, and may, perhaps, be meant to show that harmony 
ought equally to reign below in Florence as in Heaven 
above. The cappaccio worn by the Poet was white lined 
with red, the cappa, or mantle, was red lined with white, 
beneath which was a green farsetto or doublet. Plates II 
and III are outline portraits of Dante with the mutilated 
eye. Plate VI shows two positions of the mask of Dante, 
originally from Ravenna, and which was given to Mr. 
Kirkup by the sculptor Lorenzo Bartolini. "There is", 
says Mr. Kirkup (Letter April 29 th - 1860), "a MS life of 
Dante in the Magliabechiana by Cinelli about 1670, in 
which a head of Dante is mentioned, and is supposed to 
relate to the mask; what it contains on the subject has 
been printed at Bologna in the Memorie originali Italiane 
riguardanti le Belle Arti, edited by Guslandi, 1842, serie 
terza, p. 117. Gibson and Wyatt both declared (apart) 
that the mask is from nature, and not a model, or work 
of art. I did not tell them who it was, and Wyatt said, 
'it is a fine head and a good deal like the portraits of 
Dante by Raphael in the Vatican'. I think they are 
right. They judged by the surface, the arteries and 
wrinkles, besides which I judge from the eye being half 



40 

closed; a sculptor would have made them open, or else 
asleep, and any how both alike, but in this one eye is 
more closed than the other". There has been some question 
of late whether or not Dante wore a beard. The Editor 
says beards were not in fashion in those days. Yet Boc- 
caccio has left it on record that the Poet had a beard 
thick, black, and curly ; and we have the words of Bea- 
trice — aha la barba (Purg. XXXI., 68). In reference 
to the genuineness of the mask this is not of much im- 
portance, as we may suppose if Dante had a beard that 
it would have been removed before the cast was taken. 
In his early days Dante wore no beard, and it is prob- 
able that he retained this usage ever after. These plates 
are all from drawings by Mr. Kirkup, as is also the Basso 
rilievo of the three-quarter portrait of the Poet in a stu- 
dious attitude on his tomb at Ravenna by Pietro Lom- 
bardo, 1483, shown on plate IX. But before noticing 
the last resting place in Ravenna of all that was mortal 
in Dante Allighieri, it is proper to describe his once liv- 
ing residence in Florence, and here again, at the very door 
of his house, we meet with his kind friend Mr. Kirkup. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE ALBUM OF LORD VERNON CONTINUED. 

Florence of the cerchia antica. The houses of the Allighieri. Dante's 
door and the history of its misfortunes. Drawing made of it by Mr. 
Seymour Kirkup and its restoration under his direction. Sasso di 
Dante. Arch of the Porta di San Pietro. Official publications on the 
houses of the Allighieri, with remarks on the report of Prof. Fulcini. 
Dante's Tomb at Ravenna. His picture in the Duomo at Florence — 
Cristoforo Landino. 

In the heart's core of Florence, the city of the 9 th - 
and 10 th - centuries, as contained within the a cerchia an- 
tica", or the second circuit of the walls, the streets ran 
North and South, and East and West. It was not so in 
the Florence of the third circle, the walls of which were 
built in 1078, or about twelve years before the birth of 
Cacciaguida; and in Florence of the fourth circle, no re- 
gard whatever was shown to the cardinal points. The 
form of the city within the second circuit was nearly 
square, and the Piazza del Duomo occupied the N. E. 



41 

angle. From thence, as now, a straight street led to the 
"Piazza della Signoria, and, a little to the West of it, 
another street, the Calamara, ran parallel with it down to 
the Porta di S. Maria opposite to the Ponte Vecchio. 
These two streets were bisected, as at present, by the 
Corso and its continuous streets, which, passing through 
the Mercato Vecchio, the original seat of the Florentines 
descended from Fiesole, and, in the time of the Lombards, 
called Foro del Be, led from the Porta di San Pietro on 
the East to the Porta di San Pancrazio on . the west side 
of the city *. The first circle of the walls did not in- 
clude the Piazza del Buomo, nor the whole of the Corso, 
nor of the Via Picciada parallel to it, but passed south in 
a line a little to the west of the Via Santa Margherita, 
so called from the church of that name, and in the di- 
rection of the Via de' Magazzini, formerly the Via de' 
Sacchetti, so that the wall occupied in part the site on 
which were subsequently built the houses of the Al- 
lighieri, at least so it would appear. 

These houses were in the parish of S. Martino del 
Vescovo, partly in the Piazza S. Martino or de 1 Buonomini, 
— facing the Torre della Castagna, and partly in the Via 
S. Margherita, which, crossing the Piazza de' Giuocchi, 
proceeds to the Corso at a right angle. So that they had 
two frontages, but did not, it would seem, occupy the 
angle made by the Via S. Margherita and the Via S. 
Martino, which was either an open space with a well, or 
occupied by other houses. In the map of Florence in 
Lord Vernon's work the Sacchetti are located here, and 
next to them i Priori delle Arti. It is to our country- 
man, Mr. Kirkup, that the Florentines are indebted for 
the first indication of all that they have since learned of 
the houses of the Allighieri. He has the singular merit 
of having been the means of bringing to light the only 
genuine portrait of Dante, and also of saving from de- 
struction the last fragment of the Poet's house. But 
let Mr. Kirkup tell his own story. Many years ago, in 
a letter dated February 9 lh « 1857, he sent me the fol- 
lowing account of it. 

"You desire to know about Dante's house — I had 
made a careful drawing of a door, which was the only 
feature left of his time, stone by stone. One day going 
by, I found masons at work at it who had totally de- 

* This gate was also called Porta di San Paolo and de' Tor- 
naquinci, whose house was by the side of it. 



42 

stroyed it to make the entrance a little wider j the Abbe 
Mingarelli, an employe in the diplomatic archives, was 
looking on with displeasure. I told him I had drawn 
it. A few days afterwards he called on me and said 
he had been at a dinner at my opposite neighbours', 
the Cavalier Mannelli, and had complained at table of 
the barbarisms of the Florentines, and the destruction 
of the door, when to his great surprize the Cavalier 
asked if the house was in the piazza S. Martini, and 
on being told it was, he said that it was his doing to 
please the pigionali, but neither they nor he knew that 
the house was Dante's, as he had never studied any an- 
tichitd. The Abbe told him of my drawing, and he 
came to me to lend it him, and he would rebuild the 
door exactly from it. He asked me to assist him and 
direct his workman. I promised, gratuitously, as I am 
not an architect, and advised him to get some old blocks 
of the same Tuscan style, and he was lucky enough 
to get an old door. It was a larger one than Dante's, 
and the blocks required cutting, and it was done im- 
perfectly. As I had already caused them to make some 
corrections I wished to do so in this case also that 
the imitation of the old work might be complete, but 
I found that Sig. Mannelli was shy and avoided me" 
.... "The stones of the arch were cut down, as I 
said, but on two sides only. The uncut sides retained 
their border (a little smooth stripe, an inch broad and 
a 1 / i °f an i ncn deep, cut into the rough Tuscan sur- 
face of the stone), but the cut sides had no border, 
showing at a glance that it was a pasticcio, and not 
the original door (here follows a sketch of the stone). 
It might have been remedied in half an hour, by each 
stone being cut, and might still. Another fault is that 
the two brackets, or mensole, which support each end 
of the lintel, or architrave, are too large, having belonged 
to another and larger door" *. Mr. Kirkup in this letter 
also complains of the mean and erroneous inscription that 
was then set up — " Instead of a handsome slab on 
the front of the house, he has put a mean narrow slip 
in the said lintel, in the manner of a shop door, with 
this foolish inscription — In questa casa degli Alighieri 
nacque it divino poeta — instead of In queste case — 
for Dante's house extended over a large space, now 

* Mr. Kirkup's drawing of the door was made about 1830; and 
the rifacimento some six or seven years later. 



43 

containing six or eight houses , of which this is the 
smallest, having only two windows to each floor, so 
that our Inglesi when they are shown it say — 'Ah! 
one sees he was a poet and a poor man, to live in such 
a mean little house'. I have got copies of many legal 
deeds concerning the house of old Allighieri (Dante's 
father), divided by his two sons Dante and Francesco, 
and of Dante's part divided by his two sons Messer 
Pietro and Jacopo — Pietro's share being left by him 
to the Company of Or san Michele in the XIV Cen- 
tury. Some of the original notarial deeds are in the 
Magliabechiana , or copies of the time, and the limits 
of the different properties are distinctly described". 
Plate V. represents the entrance door of Dante's house, 

along with the door of the magazine at its side, from Mr. 

Kirkup's drawing. 

In the original edition of Fantozzi's "Nuova Guida", 

Firenze 1841, at p. 304 occurs the following notice — 

"92. Casa dei Signori Mannelli Galilei (Via Bic- 
ciarda No. 632). — Se non c 1 induce in errore una costante tra- 
dizione; se male non furono interpretati alcuni passi della Di- 
vina Commedia; e se la opinione dei moderni eruditi non andb 
errata, d'uopo e piegare riverenti la fronte dinanzi a questa mo- 
desta casupola siccome quella nella quale ebbe i natali il padre 
deU'Italiana poesia, raltissimo Dante Alighieri. — La sua ve- 
tustissima e singolar porticina era stata, or son pochi mesi, 
ignorantemente demolita, ma per buona fortuna essendosi con- 
servati i materiali fu rimessa al posto dietro il disegno che ne 
aveva conservato il signor Seymour Kirkup. — I/autore della 
Marietta de' Ricci (contro perb l'autorita del Vasari) racconta 
che nella loggetta terrena di questa casa, ridotta oggi a magaz- 
zino, aperse la sua osteria quel cervello balzano di Mariotto 
Albertinelli, allorche,, noiato della pittura che tanto bene eserci- 
tava, gli piacque di cangiare le mestiche in vivande, le tinte in 
vernaccia, ed i pennelli in ramaioli" *. 

Mr. Kirkup states in another letter (May 27 th - 1857), 
"There is a tower of a semicircular form in the neighbour- 
hood, piazza S. Elisabetta, which I long believed to have 
been the house of Dante as it was pointed out to me at 
first ** and was generally believed. I dont know why, 
except its neighbourhood to the porta S. Pietro; but I 

* In 1844 or 5 the Author made a drawing of the restored door. 
** Mr. Kirkup came to Italy in 1816, and after passing eight years 
in Rome, took up his residence at Florence in 1824, and has lived there 
ever since. 



44 

soon found the documents in Pelli which explained the 
truth, and afterwards I got the copies of inedited ones in 
the Magliabechiana library". Leonardo Bruni (1369 — 
1444) who had well informed himself of all that was to 
be known in his time about the houses of the Allighieri, 
has very accurately indicated their locality — "in su la 
piazza dietro a S. Martino del Vescovo, "dirimpetto alia 
via che va a casa i Sacchetti , e dall' altra parte si sten- 
dono verso le case de' Donati, e de' Giuochi". A state- 
ment repeated also by Alamanno Einuccini. 

Plate IV. is a very accurate plan of this part of the 
city drawn by Mr. Kirkup, showing the situation of the 
Sasso di Dante in the Piazza del Cuomo; the Casa de' 
Portinari in the Corso, nearly facing the Via Margherita 5 
the Curia de' Donati behind the houses of the Allighieri, 
here shown to occupy their proper situation ; and the casa 
del Bello, in the via san Martino, a little to the west of 
the latter, and separated from them by an angular passage 
also leading into the Corso. 

Few or none are the relics of Dante now remaining 
in Florence. "It is curious", says Mr. Kirkup in the letter 
last alluded to, "how many memorials of Dante have lasted 
through so long a period down to my time to be destroyed 
altogether at last, I may say under my own eyes de- 
faced and spoiled. This door is one, il sasso di Dante 
is another *, a bit of the arch of the original gate of San 
Pietro is another" — "The arch of the Porta S. Pietro 
was thrown down by a tailor who built a lodging house 
there, although he promised me to let it remain on the 
front, with a suitable inscription which I gave him". 

On the occasion of the Dante Festival an official work 
was published on Dante's house by Emilio Frullani and Gar- 
gano Gargani , ** in which the labours of these egregious 
authors resulted in showing that the small house belonging 
to Sig. Mannelli was all that they could prove as the 
ancient family residence of Dante, and their spirits, they 
said, rejoiced in the fact, "ne gode Fanimo". During the 
Dante Festival I took a rough plan of this house, in which 
each floor had been arranged to accommodate a distinct 
family. The floors measured about 45 feet in length by 
15 in breadth. The first and second floors corresponded 
in their arrangements; the length was divided into two 
nearly equal parts, the front half being subdivided, longi- 

* This was a block called a muricciuolo on which, it is said, the 
Poet often sat. 

** "Delia Casa di Dante, relazione con Documenti" Firenze 1865. 



45 

tudinally, into a narrow living room, with a kitchen and 
the stairs at the side. The back half consisted of a 
single room, very obscure, with a closet at the extremity 
in each corner. The floor above had a small additional 
middle room. 

I am indebted to a recent letter of Mr. Kirkup for 
a concise account of the history of this house. — "It fell 
to the share of Dominus Petrus Alius olim Dantis, who 
bequeathed it to the Society of Or S. Michele, who sold 
it to one Matteo Arrighi — He bequeathed it to the con- 
vent of S. Miniato, to pay with its rent for a mass in per- 
jpetuo for the soul of his friend Marco Zabadei (who died 
in 1365). After 1.40 years the friars sold the house, and 
left the soul of poor M. Z. in the lurch. The house then 
passed into the possession of several purchasers, the last 
of whom was messer Antonio del fu Koberto Galilei, 
whose descendant was Mannelli Galilei , the last of whom 
is the present signor Mannelli". In the same letter Mr. 
Kirkup remarks — "There is no reason for believing that 
this the smallest of all the houses of the family (7 or 8) was 
the one in which Dante was born. The great house, next 
door, is much more likely to have been it. It is called 
the Casone, the Magione, and the Torre, and looks down 
the street described by the historians , and Leonardo Are- 
tino, as belonging to the Sacchetti". 

A recent report on the houses of the Allighieri by 
the Architect M. Fulcini, makes some amends to the me- 
mory of the Poet, by assigning to his family house di- 
mensions more in accordance with those originally shown 
by Mr. Kirkup. The report was made in 1867, but not 
published till November 1869. Plans and sections are 
given, but there is no scale, they are drawn to the pro- 
portion of 1 to 140. My plan of the small house, the 
dimensions of which were taken in paces , gave me a scale, 
and applying this to the ground plan of the houses I found 
that their frontage in the via S. Martino was about 35 
feet, their depth to the curia de' Donati 78 feet : the front- 
age in the Via Sa. Margherita 26 feet, and the depth- 
back 62 feet. The space at the angle in which was a 
large pozzo, or well, is stated to have been occupied with 
a shop and warehouse; it is now covered with houses, 
but the character of the brickwork seemed to me so to 
correspond with that of the house of Sig. Mannelli that 

* For a detailed account of this house and its floors see "The 
sixth centenary Festivals of Dante Allighieri in Florence and at Ra- 
venna", Williams and Norgate 1866. 



46 

I should have considered these structures of the same 
date. Had this space been included in the houses of the 
Allighieri, they would have formed an irregular squared 
block with a . frontage in the Via S. Martino of about 
66 feet, and in the Via Sa. Margherita of 12 feet. As 
shown in M. Fulcini's plan they only occupy about two 
thirds of the square; at their junction behind was a mas- 
sive and lofty tower. It is somewhat doubtful whether 
the two adjoining houses, the one in the Via S. Martino 
to the west, and that in the Via Sa. Margherita to the 
north, tinted of a different colour in the plan, belonged 
to the houses of the Allighieri or not, M. Fulcini thinks 
they did not; but the subject seems to require further 
investigation. The situation of the houses is much the same 
as is shown in Lord Vernon's plan of Florence in 1302, 
which may have suggested it, especially as Luigi Passe- 
rini was a member of the commission ; but the details do 
not correspond, the frontage in the Via Sa. Margherita 
being' less than that in the Via S. Martino, whereas in 
Lord Vernon's plan it is nearly double, and in the de- 
scription of the houses given in the alphabetical list this 
is described as the principal one. 

"Aldighieri, stanno in S. Martino e dirimpetto a Santa 
Margherita — Elenco del 1215. Delle case degli Alighieri, 
che erano contigue e facevano angolo sulla due vie che 
guidavano a S. Martino e a Sa. Margherita, ho dato la 
pianta nella Mappa. La casa principale era quasi dirim- 
petto alia chiesa di Santa Margherita, o meglio alia sua 
riazzetta. La torre poi rimaneva sulla piazza di S. Mar- 
tino". 

This latter statement is not quite correct, the tower 
was not in the line of the street, but rather behind, the 
remains of it may still be seen, it was very lofty: "do- 
veva essere una Torre assai elevata", says the report, 
and if the second floor of the house in the Via S. Mar- 
tino "all'epoca di Dante non era che una soffitta a tetto 
il di cui solaio ha traccie visibili di antichita", then the 
tower of the Allighieri would have been seen standing in 
proud rivalry to its opposite neighbour, "della Castagna", 
broader and deeper as well as taller *. The proportions 
of this tower on the plan would , I think , indicate its 
having belonged to a more extensive block of .buildings 
than those assigned by M. Fulcini to the houses of the 

* The Torre della Castagna, measured in paces, gave about 22 
feet 6 inches for the width in front, and about 20 feet for the depth. 



47 

Allighieri, and more in accordance with the space as- 
signed to them by Mr. Kirkup, of whom no mention is 
made in these reports , though to his vigilance and care 
are due whatever is now known of them. 

The chapel, attached to the Church and convent of 
S. Francis at Ravenna, containing the mortal remains of 
the Poet, and the tomb as restored in 1780 by Camillo 
Morigia, on the previous design of Pietro Lombardo, at 
the expense of the Cardinal Gonzago, are the subjects 
of the Plates VII and VIII, both from drawings by Mr. 
Kirkup. 

Plate X. An engraving of the picture of Dante in 
the Duomo at Florence by Domenico di Michelino, also 
from a drawing by Mr. Kirkup. In this picture the Poet 
was originally represented in the Italian colours, the co- 
lours of Beatrice, but the green was painted out by order 
of the grand ducal government. The Editor meekly says 
of it — " probabilmente negli ultimi restauri fu mutato 
in turchino". But hear the High Priest of Dante, the 
watchful guardian of his sacred relics 

Sovra '1 bel fiume d'Arno alia gran villa. 
Speaking of the wanton destruction and disgraceful neg- 
lect of these, Mr. Kirkup indignantly says (Letter of 
May 27 th - 1857) — "The same system made them alter by 
the hand of Marini the dress in the. old picture of Dante 
in the Duomo, where the green is changed to blue". 
The original colour ought long ago to have been restored. 

Plate XI. A portrait of one Sinibaldo Alighieri, who 
died in 1420, existing in the great cloister of Sta. Maria 
Novella; also from a drawing by Mr. Kirkup. This indi- 
vidual was no relation of the Poet's family. 

Plate XII. It is pleasant to see dear old Cristoforo 
Landino coming in for a share in the honors of this Al- 
bum, though we are not treated to a sight of his bene- 
volent face as it kindly looks down upon us from the 
fresco of Ghirlandajo in the choir of Santa Maria No- 
vella, and must be contented with a view of the church 
in the village of Borgo alia Collina, where he had a country 
house, and is said to have been born, along with his mo- 
nument within, erected in 1848. Up to that time the mor- 
tal remains of this learned Dantophilist had been treated 
with singular profanation. For a small gratuity his dried up 
body was shown as an object of interest to strangers. 
One entrance to the village passed under Landino's house, 
which was a large irregular building of many rooms. 



48 

Within a short distance of it was a small fountain, the 
Fontanella, now recognized as one of the three Fonte- 
branda Tav. XCV and XCVI fig. 1. Landino seems to 
have regarded no other Fontebranda sufficient to slake 
the parching thirst of Maestro Adamo, than the great 
fountain of this name at Siena. 



CHAPTER VI. 

NOTICE OF THE REMAINING ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE 
ALBUM. 

With special Remarks on Pisa and the Torre della Fame. 

The hundred plates of Lord Vernon's Album of Dante 
which remain to be noticed, and follow in the order of 
the Cantos, may be divided into five classes according- 
to their subjects. 

I. Illustrations of the Inferno and its Torments. 
II. Views of Cities, Towns, Castles, and other Localities 
noticed in the Inferno. 

III. Representations of Persons, real or mythological, named 

in the Inferno. 

IV. Classical and Mediaeval Objects alluded to. 

V. Other Illustrations which do not strictly come under 
any of these heads. 

Class I. Illustrations of the Inferno and its Torments. 

Diagram of the Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise from 
the Cod. Laurenziano Plut. XL. No. 2. Tav. XIII. 

Orgagna's Inferno in the Strozzi chapel in Sta. Maria 
Novella. Tav. XIV. 

La Morte del Conte Ugolino from a basso relievo in the 
casa Gherardesca in Florence. Tav. CI. 

The following thirteen illustrations are by Mr. Kirkup. 

L'Antinferno (Inf. Ill, 109) Tavola XXI. 

Limbo (Inf. IV, 23) „ XXII. 

Avari e Prodighi (Inf. VII, 25) „ XXVIII. 

Lo Stige (Inf. VII, 106) ....... „ XXIX. 

Spaccato del Inferno „ XXXV. 



49 

II settimo Cerchio (Inf. XIV, 8). . . . Tavola XXXVIII. 

Corso de 1 Fiumi Infernali (Inf. XIV, 112) . „ XL. 
Pianta dell 1 Inferno col viaggio di Dante fin 

al secondo Burrato (Inf. XIV, 124) . . „ XLI. 

Gerione (Inf. XVI, 130; XVII, 10) ... „ XL VII. 

Le Borse degli Usurai (Inf. XVII, 55, 72) . . „ XL VIII. 

Li dieci dimoni . „ LXVI e LXVII. 

Malebolge e Cocito (Inf. XVIII, 1 ; XXIV, 37) „ LXIX. 

Lucifero (Inf. XXIV, 28) ....... „ CXI. 

Mr. Kirkup has built up the Inferno according to the 
text of Dante, and at the same time has designed the 
figures effectively and with the talent of an able Artist *. 
Almost everything which can interest a Dantophilist is 
due to his erudite pencil. 

Class II. Views of Cities, Towns, Castles and other Localities 
noticed in the Inferno. 

These consist either of general views, or of views 
combined with special details, in which several plates 
relating to them are given in succession. 

The general views are by Ziem, Lear, and others, 
a few by Mr. Kirkup, they have been engraven mostly 
by Finden and Lasinio. 

Arbia, fiume K. (Inf. X, 86) Tav. XXXII. 

Arezzo. (Inf. XXII, 4) „ LXV. 

Aries. (Aliscamps) (Inf. IX, 112) „ XXXI. 

Bologna, La Garisenda (Inf. XXXI, 136) . . „ XCVIII. 

Campaldino. (Inf. XXII, 4—5) ** (Purg. V, 91) „ XCIII. 

Cattolica, la. (Inf. XXVIII, 20) „ LXXXVII. 

Faenza. (Inf. XXXII, 122) „ C. 

Fano. (Inf. XXVIII, 76) „ LXXXVI. 

* Mr. Kirkup had in his early days been a distinguished pupil 
of the Royal Academy, and at the close of his studies would have re- 
ceived the gold medal had not the Academy withheld it that year from 
a motive of economy. In his own lucid style he states in a letter of 
March 18 th - 1857 — "They refused the medal after making us paint 
for it because in their economy they saved it and £ 100, along 
with it, in order to spend it in a grand dinner to Canova! Poor Etty 
reminded me of it but a short time before his death I was considered 
the victim, sure of the prize". Mr. Kirkup was the intimate friend 
and companion of a choice circle of painters whose equals we may 
never, perhaps, see again. 

** Though Campaldino does not occur in the Inferno, yet allu- 
sions to the battle occur, and the locality is of classic importance in 
reference to various places and objects of interest in this part of the 
Casentino, especially Homena and its Castle. 

4 



50 



Fiesole. (Inf. XVI, 61) Tav. XLIV. 

Firenze. (Inf. XV, 1) „ LXXVII. 

11 Battistero di S. Giovanni. (Inf. XIX, 13) . ,, LIII. 

Piazza de' Signori of 1498, representing the 

burning of Savonarola ,, LXXX. 

Forli. (Inf. XXVII, 43) . „ LXXXIII. 

Genova. (Inf. XXXIII, 151). . . . . . . . „ CX. 

Lucca antica „ LXII. 

— moderna. (Inf. XVIII, 122; XXXIII, 30) „ LXXII. 

— Santa Zita. (Inf. XIX, 38) K „ LXIII. 

— II volto santo. (Inf. XXI, 48) K. . . . „ LXIV. 
Magra. Foce della, (Inf. XXIV, 145) . . . „ LXXIV. 

— Vol di, (Inf. XXIV, 145) * . . . . „ LXXV. 

Mantova. (Inf. XX, 88) „ LVIII. 

Montaperti. K. (Inf. XXXII, 80) ..... „ XCIX. 

Montereggioni. (Inf. XXXI, 58) „ XCVII. 

Mont one. Caduta del, K. (Inf. XIV, 94) . ; „ XL VI. 

Padova. (Inf. XV, 7) ** „ XLII. 

Palestrina. (Inf. XXVII, 101) . . . . . ■ „ LXXXIV. 

Pesaro. (Inf. V, 106) f . „ XXV. 

Peschiera. (Inf. XX, 70) „ LXXVII. 

Pisa. (Inf. XXXIII, 79) . . „ CII. 

Piazza de* Cavalieri in Pisa. . . . . . „ CIV. 

There is no city in all Italy to which Dante has 
given a greater poetic notoriety than to Pisa. The epi- 
sode of the count Ugolino della Gheradesca raises it to a 
preeminence, for evil or for good, above every other lo- 
cality named in the Divina Commedia. The Poet's em- 
phatic condemnation is as a charter of perpetual fame. 

* In the same plate is a seal with the inscription S. Moroelli 
Marchionis Malaspine. There were three Moroelli of this family. 
One was the Marquis of Giovag-allo, the famous captain of the Neri, 
whom Dante calls -Vapor di Val di Magra; the other was that Mor- 
oello, Marquis of Villafranca, who, with his brother Corradino , and 
his cousin Franceschino di Mulazzo, on October 6 th - 1306, constituted 
Dante procuratore in the treaty of Peace between this family and 
the Bishop of Luni. The third, the son of the latter, was at this 
time an infant. 

** Dante would seem to have been endowed at this period with 
a sort of ubiquity, for we find him at Padua in the same year re- 
siding' in the contrada di San Lorenzo, and signing 1 a document as 
witness: u Fuit e testimoniis Dantino q. Allighierii de Florentia, et 
nunc stat Paduae in contrada Sancti LaurentiV\ Album p. 115. 

f This view of Pesaro was inserted from the belief that it was 
here, in 1258, that Francesca da Rimini was murdered by her infu- 
riated husband. But Dr. Luigi Tonini has since demonstrated, on 
documentary evidence, that the tragical deed was perpetrated at Ri- 
mini, in 1285. 



51 

The motives which induced Dante thus to perpetuate 
the existence of Pisa in his immortal poem by the most 
harrowing description ever penned of an ideal scene of 
mortal woe, will, probably, never be known; but that 
there were special and personal motives for this cannot 
be doubted. .Possibly they were of a political character. 
Pisa had deserved well of the Ghibellines. Here Dante's 
hero, Henry VII, had been received with honour and 
welcomed with gladness. From the 6 th - of March 1312, 
to the 22 nd - of April, the Emperor held at Pisa a bril- 
liant court. After his coronation at Rome, and his un- 
successful attempt on Florence, he again held his court 
at Pisa from March to August 1313, and from this city 
issued his condemnation of the Florentines and of King 
Robert of Naples. He remained at Pisa till August 5 th -, 
when he set forth on his well devised southern campaign 
in alliance with Frederic of Sicily, who, on the same 
day, sailed with his galleys from Messina, and, landing 
in Calabria, took the city of Reggio. Thus Fortune seemed 
at length to smile upon the Emperor, but it was only a 
passing illusion. He had not been well during the last 
few days of his sojourn at Pisa, but would not on that 
account postpone his appointed departure in cooperation 
with King Frederic. In camp he became worse, and on the 
24 th - of August, St. Bartholomew's day, died at Bonconvento 
near Siena. The royal corpse was brought to Pisa, where, 
with great solemnity, it was interred in the Duomo. In 
the Campo Santo the sarcophagus still remains delV alto 
Arrigo, whom Dante, above all others, desired to honour. 
(Pard. XXX, 133—8.) 

Pisa, therefore, politically, deserved to be distinguished 
for the cordial support it had afforded to the Emperor, 
and for the warm welcome it had always given him ; 
but the citizens, in suffering the Archbishop Ruggieri 
to gratify his vindictive malice, rendered themselves 
amenable to the just indignation of the Poet, and he has 
not spared them. The denunciations which follow this 
tragical scene show how deeply the diabolical deed had 
moved the soul of Dante Allighieri. There is but one other 
passage that can be named along with it — the exqui- 
site episode of Francesca da Rimini. Tenderness and 
compassion are transparent throughout the domestic tale 
of conjugal revenge committed by a jealous and infuriated 
layman. Indignation and. horror characterize the nar- 
rative of the atrocious act of political hatred perpetrated 
by a rabid ecclesiastic. The misfortunes of Francesca 



52 

reveal the emotions of a gentle and loving spirit. The 
crime of the archbishop shows the impression produced 
on a righteous soul by a violence against human nature. 
At Rimini we search in vain for the site of the fatal 
chamber where the cruel deed of blood was committed — 
time has removed all traces of the act. Not so at Pisa, 
there the locality of the horrible prison tower has never 
been lost sight of, though no portion of its walls now 
remain exposed. It stood in the Piazza de' Cavalieri, 
on the right hand of the arched passage which, by the 
Via deW Arcivescovado , leads towards the Duomo. Co- 
simo L, in 1556, gave it to the fraternity of the 
knights of St. Stephen, and Vasari incorporated its re- 
mains in the Palazzo dell' Orologio. Fortunately Lord 
Vernon obtained at Pisa a drawing of the ruined tower 
in the Piazza as it existed at this period. It was of a 
square form, had two narrow roundheaded windows on 
the ground floor, which would seem to have been raised 
somewhat above the level of the street, and one very 
narrow window on the floor above; this would agree well 
enough with the 

Breve pertugio dentro dalla muda; 

and the arch of a doorway at the side partly buried by 
the soil would correspond with V Hscio di sotto, so that it 
may be considered very probable that Ugolino and his 
family were confined in the room on this floor. What- 
ever there might once have been over it had then been 
thrown down. The Piazza and the remains of the tower 
form the subject of Plate CIV. Lord Vernon was much 
attached to Pisa, as every literary man must be who has 
felt the soothing influence of its climate along with the 
genial tranquillity of its quiet life, and during a sojourn 
there gave commission to the architect Delia Santa to 
examine the building into which the wall or walls of the 
tower had been incorporated and to make a report on 
them. These details form the subjects of Plate CIII, 
and consist of plans of the ground floor and of the first 
and second floors of the house together with an elevation 
and section. They confirm the situation of the tower as 
had previously been held, but give dimensions to it quite 
out of character with the representation of the ruin as it 
existed in the time of Cosimo I. 

In the plan of Sig. Delia Santa the front of the 
tower, which faced nearly North, is shown to have formed 
an angle of 15° with the square, and the portion incor- 



53 

porated in the front to have measured 27.474 feet to the 
centre of the side wall, its thickness at the angle being 
6.223 feet. This is the greatest thickness shown on the 
plan. As the Via dell 7 Arcivescovado passes beneath the 
Palace the angle of the wall is splayed. The external 
line of the side wall measures 54.527 feet, and the return 
angle, forming the supposed wall of the tower behind, 
22.978 feet. The side wall throughout is slightly thin- 
ned, nor is any portion of it equal in thickness to the 
front wall — the space within from front to back is di- 
vided into three unequal portions, of which the front one 
is the largest, but it is very doubtful if these divisional 
walls ever existed in the tower, or even mark the site of 
any that did; the three rooms thus formed are vaulted. 

In 1865, through the kindness of the occupier Signor 
Bartoli, I was enabled to make a tracing of the original 
plan of this house, Palazzo Finnocchetti , together with 
that on the opposite side of the arched passage, and to 
inspect the premises. The dimensions on this plan are a 
trine less than those on the plan of Sig. Delia Santa, but 
the arrangement is the same, except that there is no back 
wall of the tower as marked on his plan, nor can I un- 
derstand how the existence of such a wall could agree 
with the present arrangement. I saw none. On this 

Slan the premises are prolonged in the line of the Via 
[artini. 

On the basement story, in the pavement of the room 
beyond the stairs, a vaulted dungeon, or cachot, had been 
found concealed. It was entered by a circular aperture 
about 18 inches in diameter, just wide enough for a small 
ladder to be put down and a man to squeeze himself in. 
This was concealed by an inner and outer covering. The 
entrance after a little becomes square, and then opens 
into a vault nearly twelve feet each way, which was filled 
up with soil and rubbish to the springing of the arch, 
and might have been about six feet in depth. This may 
have been only a hiding place, but the careful way 
in which the entrance was concealed looked somewhat 
suspicious. The original tower, however, never extended 
so far as this. 

Just beyond the side wall of the tower is a pozzo 
nearly forty feet deep, the situation of this is shown in 
Delia Santa's plan, but no mention is made of it. It was 
the well within the tower, or attached to it, of which we 
read a notice in the Codice of the Divina Commedia at 



54 



Dresden , and .was still visible when the drawing of the 
ruin was made *. 



Pisa. Facciata sulla Piazza de } Cavalieri. in Pisa, 
con tre piante ed uno spaccato. (Inf. 
XXXIII, 22) ........ . 

Torre della Fame. K . 

II fonte battesimale di Pisa 

Monumento di Arrigo VII, nel Campo santo. 
Porto Pisano - . . 

Pianta delV antico Porto Pisano. 

Pistoia. (Inf. XXIV, 143) 

H fonte battesimale di Pistoia 

Porta della Sagrestia de' Belli Arredi. (Inf. 

XXIV, 137) 

Piazza di Pistoia 

Prato, il Duomo di Prato. (Inf. XXVI, 3) . . 
Bavenna. (Inf. V, 97) ....... . 

Rimini. (Inf. XXVIII, 86) 

Bom a. Prospetto di Boma Antica (secolo.XV) 

(Inf. II, 19) 

II Fonte Santangello. (Inf. XVIII, 28) . . . 
La Basilica Vaticana. (Inf. XVIII, 32) . 

Prospetto deW Antica Basilica 

II Monte Avertino. (Inf. XVI, 25) . . . . 
La Pina di S. Pietro. (Inf. XXXI, 58) . . 

Bomena. (Inf. XXX, 73) , . . 

II Castello di Bomena. 

Fontebranda a Bomena. (Inf. XXX, 76) . 
Siena. Piazza del Campo nel 1300. (Inf. XXIX, 

121) 

II Duomo 

Fontebranda di Siena. (Inf. XIX, 76). . . 

Lo Slavino di Marco. K. (Inf. XII, 4) . . 

Tagliacozzo. (Inf. XXVIII, 17) . . . . . 

Venezia. Iconographia Urbis Venetiarum. . . 

L' Arsenate di Venezia. (Inf. XXI, 7) . . . 

Pianta delV Arsenate 

Verona. 

Monumento di Cangrande della Scala. 

(Inf. I, 101) 

II Ponte di Vitruvio a Verona 



Tav 



. cm. 

CV. 

LIV. 

XIX. 
CVI. CVIL 

CVIII. 

CIX. 

LXXI. 
LV — LVL 

LXX. 

LXXIII. 

LXXXI. 

XXIX. 

LXXXVIII. 

XX. 

L. 

LI. 

LII. 

LXXVI. 

XCVII. 

XCI. 

XCII. 

XCV.XCVI. 

LXXXIX. 

XC. 

XCV.XCVI. 

XXXVI. 

LXXXV. 

LIX. 

LX. 

LXI. 



XVII. 
XVIII. 



• See u Il Conte Ugolino e V Arcivescovo 
from the Pisan Chronicles". Triibner, 1862. 



A sketch 






55 

II Gorso del Palio verde a Verona. (Inf. XV, 

121) Tav. XLV. 

Viterbo. U suo Duomo, e il Bulicame. (Inf. XII, 

115; XIV, 79) „ XXXIX. 

Class III. Representations of Persons, real or mythological. 

Alessandro Magno (Inf. XIV, 28) ; and Chirone the 

Centaur. (Inf. XII, 70) K Tav. XXXVIII. 

Aristotile, from the Spadapalace Rome. (Inf. IV, 131) ,, XXIII. 
Giulio Cesare and Augusto, from two coins. (Inf. 

I, 70) „ XV. 

Marco Giunio Bruto (Inf. XXXIV, 65); Bedalo 

and Icaro. (Inf. XXIX, 116) . . . . „ CXII. 
Virgilio, from a bust in the Capitol, and from a mi- 
niature in the Vatican. (Inf. I, 79) . ,, XVI. 
Caronte, from an ancient basso relievo. (Inf. Ill, 109) ,, XXIII. 
Lancilotto, Ginevra, e Galeotto, from a MS. di 

Lancilotto del Lago in the possession of 

Mr. Kirkup. K. (Inf. V, 127) . . . „ XXVI. 
Federico II, from a miniature in the Vatican, 

also his head from an Augustdlis. (Inf. 

X, 119) „ XXXIV. 

Guido Cavalcante, from an ideal portrait in the 

Ufizi, Florence. (Inf. X, 58) ... „ XXXII— III. 
Brunetto Latini, from an apocryphal portrait in 

the Ufizi — also his monument. (Inf. 

XV, 29) „ XL1II. 

Bonifacio VIII, from a fresco in S. Giovanni La- 

terano. (Inf. XIX, 13) . . . . . . „ XLIX. 

Supposed statue of Bonifazio from the Duomo 

at Florence. K „ LII. 

Ercole. (Inf. XXV, 31) ; Diomede e Ulisse. K. (Inf. 

XXVI, 55) . . ,', LXXXII. 

Esopo, from the villa Albani in Rome. (Inf. XXIII, 4) „ LXVI. 

Class IV. Classical and Mediaeval Objects alluded to. 

La Lupa del Campidoglio. (Inf. I, 49) . . . Tav. XV. 
Cerbero, from the Vatican. (Inf. VI, 13); and La 

Fortuna. (Inf. VII, 67) „ XXVII. 

Medusa, two heads, one from a Greek Gem, the 

other from a bronze. K. (Inf. IX, 52) . ,, XXX. . 
Monumento di un Frate Gaudente. K. (Inf. XXIII, 

103) „ LXVIII. 

Monumento di Guglielmo Berardi. K „ XCIV, 



56 

Architettura Toscana del secolo XIV. .... Tav. LXXVIII. 

Logge. "Fino a tutto il XIV secolo le logge fu- 
rono come la sala di ragnnata delle fa- 
miglie fiorentine" „ LXXIX. 

Fiorini. K. (Inf. XXX, 89) . „ XCIV. 

"II primo Fiorino fu coniato nel 1252 d' oro puro". — "Le 
tratte de 1 fiorini fatte in vita di Dante si possono an- 
noverare a circa 150. Ad ogni tratta la Zecca appo- 
neva un segno diverso; circa il 1303 al segno si trova 
aggiunto anche l'anno della tratta'' 1 . 

Class V. Other Illustrations. 

La Francesca da Rimini posta in musica da Giovacchino Rossini. A. 

In his address to the reader Lord Vernon has spoken 
of this short composition of Rossini in terms so charac- 
teristic of himself that I cannot better conclude this brief 
notice of his great work than by repeating them here. — 
"E qui convien ch'io parli di cosa che io considero di 
grande onore per me e di gran pregio per il mio Album. 
L'autore del Barbiere, del Mose e del Guglielmo Tell, 
Giovacchino Rossini, si piacque per cortesia di ornarlo 
di un raggio della sua immaginativa, traducendo in note 
musicali la parte piu movente del racconto della Fran- 
cesca da Rimini". Posterity will pronounce the honour 
to have been conferred on the composer by the privilege 
thus afforded him of associating his name in this noble 
monument to the genius of the divine Allighieri. 

Onorate l'altissimo Poeta! 






DANTE ALLIGHIER1 

AT VERONA 
AND IN THE VAL LAGARINA. 






DANTE AT VERONA. 

The course of Dante's exile and subsequent history as related prophe- 
tically by Cacciaguida. The attempts of the Bianchi on Florence. 
The affair of Montaccianico. Dante's separation from his party. The 
Scaligeri of Verona. Dante's primo refugio e primo ostello. Can 
Bartolomeo. The imperial eagle added to the arms of the Scaligeri 
in 1311. Character of Alboino. The prophetic style of speaking as 
used by Cacciaguida. Can Grande il gran Lombardo. The corrupted 
reading of the Divina Commedia in reference to this subject, and its 
consequences. Rectification of the text by Monsignor Dionisi of 
Verona. Readings of the principal Codici in the Library of the 
British Museum. The statue of Dante at Verona. 

In the seventeenth canto of the Paradiso, following, 
step by step, the narrative which Dante has given us of 
his exile, Ave may trace certain facts in a consecutive and 
chronological order. There is the edict of banishment and 
its first afflictions, separation from his home, his beloved 
wife and children: 

Tu lascerai ogni cosa diletta 
Piu caramente: v. 55 — 6. 

Next we have his numerous peregrinations and receptions 
in the houses of his friends; living for the time on their 
benevolence : 

Tu proverai si come sa di sale 

Lo pane altrui, e com' e duro calle 
Lo scendere e il salir per l'altrui scale. 

v. 58—60. 
But more bitter than these is the misery of associating 
with such company as the worthless Bianchi, whose dis- 
grace he shared. . This is a heavier burden to bear than 
being without a home of his own, and living on the 
bounty of other people. 

E quel che piu ti gravera le spalle 

Sara la compagnia malvagia e scempia, 
Con la qual tu cadrai in questa valle; 



60 

Che tutta ingrata, tutta matta ed empia 

Si fara contra te; ma poco appresso 

Ella, non tu, n'avrarossa la tempia. v. 61 — 66. 

Of the Poet's utter contempt for the Bianchi we have a 

convincing proof in his indignant allusion to them in the 

third canto of the Inferno, where they are stigmatized as, 

la setta dei cattivi, 
A Dio spiacenti ed a' nemici sui. 
It is admitted that the the first two years of Dante's 
exile were passed chiefly in different parts of Tuscany, 
assisting and aiding in the schemes of the Bianchi to 
effect their return to Florence. At Arezzo, in 1302, he 
was one of the councillors of this party, which persisted 
in an ill judged expedition to Florence in opposition to 
his prudent advice. This circumstance is alluded to in 
the following verses: 

Di sua bestialitate il suo, processo 
Fara la pruova, si ch'a te fia bello 
Averti fatta parte per te stesso. v. 67—69. 
Carlo Troya, in his "Veltro Allegorico" (p. 57), has on 
this passage remarked "Per questa sua temperanza gra- 
vissime ire dei Bianchi, non meno che contro Uguccione, 
si accesero contro il poeta: lunghi anni erano trapassati 
e rimemorava egli ancora fra le sue maggiori sventure di 
esser caduto nella valle dell' esilio in compagnia si mal- 
vagia e dappoco; appellando matta ed empia ed ingrata 
quella gente, che altrove chiamo selvaggia". — "Dante 
adunque si tolse da essi, e parti per Verona; questo e cio, 
ch'egli dice, l'aver fatto parte a se per se stesso; cer- 
cando il primo rifugio ed il primo ostello appo il gran 
Lombardo, Bartoiomeo della Scala". 

In the space of two years and a half from the date 
of Dante's first condemnation, the Bianchi, assisted by the 
Ghibellines, made two unsuccessful attempts at restoring 
themselves to Florence by force of arms. The first was 
in March 1303 under Scarpetta degli Ordelaffi da Forli, 
which was ruined against the castle of Pulicciano near 
Borgo San Lorenzo, and is known as la guerra del Mu- 
gello; to this expedition Bartoiomeo della Scala is said by 
the Veronese historians to have sent a small contingent 
at the request of Dante. The second attempt was made 
in July 1304, at the instigation of the papal legate, the 
Cardinal Niccolo da Prato; it was a secret reunion of all 
the Bianchi, and their Ghibelline friends, urged to make a 
sudden dash at Florence under very favourable circum- 



61 

stances , and with the apparent sanction, or approbation, 
of the Pope. The expedition was commanded by Bas- 
chiera della Tosa (Tosinghi), and would have been 
successful but for his bad generalship, and the blunders 
that were committed. It is known as the affair alia 
Lastra *, and Dante was by Pelli believed to have been 
present. The exiles gained a footing in the city, but, 
what by their own folly, the defection of their friends, 
and the panic that seized their ranks, they were driven 
out with disgrace and loss. This event happened on the 
festival of Santa Margherita, the 20 lh - of July 1304, a 
memorable day in the annals of Florence **. 

It is not probable that Dante took part in this ad- 
venture, though he might have assisted in promoting it. 
He would seem to have cherished a poet's love for his 
hello ovile, which withheld him from raising personally 
his arm against it. He was not in the first expedition, 
and many years after, when the Emperor Henry VII., 
Dante's great hope, laid siege to Florence, though the 
Poet had urged him to do so, and upbraided his delay, 
yet he is believed, on good authority, not to have been 
in the imperial army at the time. 

There is much difference of opinion among authors 
as to the precise period- when Dante separated himself 
from the Bianchi, and made a party for himself. Carlo 
Troya understood him to mean before any attempt in arms 
had been made on Florence; Balbo after the first attempt, 
and Pelli after the second. But Dante |was still acting with 
the exiles in the summer of 1306, when he took part in 
the assembly of the chiefs of the Bianchi and Ghibellines 
held in the church of San Gaudenzio in Mugello to or- 
ganize a war on Florence from the castle of Montaccianico 
belonging to the Ubaldini. His name occurs along with 
Messeri Torrigiano and Vieri &e Cerchi, and fifteen other 
capi, assembled within this strong castle which for three 
months, from May to August 1306, the Florentines be- 
sieged in vain, and only obtained possession of it through 
the dissensions among the Ubaldini, when all within its 
walls were allowed to go forth free f . Between the sum- 
mers of 1304 and 1306 there was time enough for Dante 
to have made his first sojourn at Verona. 

* Alia Lastra di Mont 1 Ughi, two miles north of Florence. 
** So Giovanni Yillani and Ammirato; Balbo and others place it 
two days later. 

f Balbo antedates this event by two years. 



62 

Girolamo dalla Corte, under 1306, states that Alboino 
della Scala having sent his brother Francesco with a force 
to assist the Bergomaschi, and being opposed by a greater 
force, returned to Verona without effecting anything, the 
troops at the prayer of Dante were sent to assist the 
fuorusciti of Florence, "di questi uno era il sopranomi- 
nato Dante Alighieri, il quale essendo di molta accortezza 
e dottrina fu dal sig. Can Francesco in casa del quale 
era allogiato, molto onoratamente trattato ed accarezzato"*. 
The expedition here mentioned is believed by some to 
have been that of 1303; but it may be intended for the 
war on Florence from the castle of Montaccianico in the 
summer of 1306, in which Dante took a leading part. 
Girolamo dalla Corte is evidently speaking of something 
which occurred after the decease of Bartolomeo, and when 
Can Grande was no longer a child. It would seem also 
that the historian of Forli, Flavio Biondo (Basle 1559), 
was also alluding to some later expedition than that of 
1303, commanded by Scarpetta degli Ordelaffi, where he 
says — "Et Canis Grandis Scaliger, Veronse tunc pri- 
mum dominio potitus a predictis omnibus Forolivii agen- 
tibus, per Dantis legationem oratus, auxilia equitum pe- 
ditumque concessit" (Dec. II, lib. IX, p. 337 — 8). 

It is highly probable, before Dante separated him- 
self from the Bianchi, that he had been more than once 
at the court of the Scaligeri, and may even have regarded 
Verona as his temporary home. Nor is it unlikely, be- 
fore he finally broke with the Bianchi, that he may at 
times have stood aloof from their proceedings , and yet 
have returned again to take a leading part in their coun- 
cils when circumstances rendered his assistance desirable. 
After 1306 however this connexion apparently ceased, 
and Dante no longer had any hand in their political 
schemes, nor took any interest in their affairs. 

The Scaligeri were so called from one of their an- 
cestors having, it is said, in the assault of a castle, been 
the first to place a scaling ladder against the walls ; they 
had been honored citizens of Verona from the 11 th - cen- 
tury. In 1260 Mastino della Scala, who had served under 
Eccelino, the tyrant of Padua, was chosen by the people 
to be Podesta. In 1262 he was made Capitano del Po- 
polo for life, and from that time began the greatness of 
the family as lords of Verona. 

* Girolamo dalla Corte "Storia di Verona". Edit. Venezia 1744. 



63 

Like other aspirants to supreme power Mastino was 
not scrupulous how he obtained it. Resolved to rule 
alone, in 1263 — 4, he expelled Lodovico di San Bonifazio, 
who stood in his way, and the Count's palace being pulled 
down the church of S. Anastasia was built on its ruins. 
In 1269 he took advantage of a popular tumult to get 
rid of the nobility. On October 17 th - 1277 he was assas- 
sinated by four conspirators under the archway of the 
Piazza de' Signori, known as il volto barbaro. Mastino I. 
has the reputation of having been a popular and pacific 
prince, and ruled Verona for fifteen years. His brother 
Alberto avenged his death, took his place, and governed 
Verona for four and twenty years: he died of dropsy 
in 1301, leaving three sons, Bartolomeo, Alboino and 
Francesco. 

His eldest son, Bartolomeo, was immediately con- 
firmed by the people as perpetual lord of the city, but 
this perpetuity was limited by fate to three years, he 
died in March 1304; in the same month his brother, Al- 
boino, was proclaimed captain general. Alboino was of 
an amiable and peaceful disposition, and feeling the want 
of that martial energy which the political circumstances 
of the time required in a ruler, at his particular request, 
his younger brother Francesco, better known as Can 
Grande, who possessed this quality in an eminent degree, 
was in 1308 joined with him in authority. 

Dante has deemed only one temporary home deserv- 
ing of mention in the Divina Commedia, and he intro- 
duces it immediately after the notice of his final sepa- 
ration from the Bianchi, as his primo rifugio, and primo 
ostello. 

Lo primo tuo rifugio e il primo ostello 
Sara la cortesia del gran Lombardo, 
Che in su la scala porta il santo uccello. v. 70 — 3. 

Rifugio and ostello are not synonymous, the former 
signifies a place of safety for a brief space, the latter a 
more permanent home. Cacciaguida uses ostello (Pard. 
XV. 132) to express the established domicile of a citizen 
of Florence in his own city — "a cosi dolce ostello' 7 . 
Verona, which afforded Dante both these advantages, was 
regarded by him as his chief place of refuge, and his prin- 
cipal home after he had been exiled from Florence, but 
it was not numerically his first place of refuge nor his 
first temporary home, for he had previously been at Arezzo 



64 

with Bossone da Gubbio, and at Fori! with Scarpetta degli 
Ordelaffi *. But who is this "gran Lombardo" 

Che in su la scala porta il santo uccello? 
Was he Bartolomeo, or Alboino, or Can Grande? In 
1300 Alberto their Father was still living, but Dante has 
disposed of him elsewhere (Purg. XVIII. , 121 — 6). 

All the early commentators before Vellutello here de- 
clared for Bartolomeo, and some have supported him since. 
It is difficult to believe that Dante may not have visited 
Verona during the reign of Bartolomeo, though he did not 
take up his residence there till a later period **. Doubt- 
less Dante would have been well received by him, Bar- 
tolomeo would have felt his court honored by the pre- 
sence of the distinguished exile, and would have behaved 
towards him in a manner worthy of his own position though 
he did nothing more. But how about the imperial bird, 
the santo uccello, which so many Commentators have given 
to Bartolomeo on the supposed ipse dixit of the Master? 

Can Bartolomeo is known to have been a wise and 
prudent prince, and desiring to re*tain the permanent po- 
sition which his family by their popular election had at- 
tained, may, it has been conjectured, have set up the im- 
perial symbol of power as a protection to their own, be- 
fore the Scaligeri, as imperial vicars, were legally entitled 
to bear it. 

But this is a mere hypothesis. Among the moderns, 
Lombardi had a dreamy sort Of notion that an eagle had 
been borne by the Scaligeri on their family ladder before 
its official introduction. 

Tommaseo, improving on the notion of Lombardi, has 
boldly asserted that it was so, and that Bartolomeo "aveva 
per insegna un'aquila sovra una scala, prima assai che 
Arrigo facesse Can Grande o Alboino vicarii dell'impero". 
Tommaseo does not tell us where he got this information 

* Although no other passage occurs in the Divina Commedia 
in which prima is used for principale , yet an example is found in 
the Vita Nuova, where Dante, alluding to Guido Cavalcante, speaks 
of him as "al mio primo amice*", he had previously notieed him as 
"quegli cui io chiamo primo de' miei amicV. The repetition of the 
word primo shows also that the Poet meant something more by it 
than a mere numerical relation. 

** In the Commentary ascribed to Pietro Allighieri we read on 
this passage, along with the prevalent notion about the eagle: 
"Dicendo quod ibit ad illos de la Scala de Verona, dominante 
tunc domino Bartholomaeo de dicta domo, portante aquilam su- 
per scalam in armatura. Item dicit quod bonum est ut sibi 
provideat ab alio loco quam de Florentia". p. 668, 



65 

from ; or whether it was only the nebulous notion of Lom- 
bardi transformed by his clearer vision into a spurious 
historical fact. It is true among the tombs of the Scali- 
geri at Verona ; there is one which looks older than that 
of Alboino, and has an eagle on it, this tomb is by the 
cusfode assigned to Bartolomeo, but without any autho- 
rity ; and Litta ignores it. 

When Henry VII. entered Italy in 1311, Can Grande 
went to meet him, and at Milan resigned Verona, and 
other cities which he ruled, into the hands of the Emperor, 
receiving them back again from him to be held as a per- 
petual imperial fief. 

In the history of Verona written by Ludovico Mos- 
cardo, Patritio Veronese, 1668, under the years 1310 — 11, 
we read — "At this time the Emperor Henry VII. came 
into Italy and proceeded to Milan . . . not many days 
after his arrival, Can Grande with a numerous suite of 
nobles went to Milan to meet him, and there renounced 
into the Emperor's hands Verona and all the other cities 
which himself and his brother Alboino held. The Em- 
peror was delighted, and thanked him for his zeal and 
loyalty, and a public registration was made of the act. 
The Veronesi, however, were greatly displeased at it, 
though they did not show their displeasure, but probably 
this was the original cause of the ruin of the family. The 
Emperor constituted Alboino and his brother Can Grande 
imperial Vicars of all the cities which they had re- 
nounced, and granted them back again to be held in 
feudo perpetuo". Can Grande remained at Milan during 
the stay of the Emperor, and accompanied him as far as 
Bologna, where he took leave of him and returned with 
an imperial commissioner to Verona. Here the same sort 
of ceremony was gone through to that performed at Mi- 
lan; the commissioner representing the Emperor, and re- 
quiring the anziani and principal officials to take an oath 
of fidelity first to him, and then to Alboino and Can 
Grande , recognizing them in future as their true and le- 
gitimate lords; u at the same time he added to their fa- 
mily arms the imperial eagle 7 '. These things were done 
with great solemnity, the historian says, and from that 
time the two brothers, but more especially Can Grande, 
began to assume an air of considerable gravity. These 
pomps and vanities had less influence on the pious Al- 
boino, who did not long live to enjoy the dignity thus 
conferred upon him. He died on the last day of Novem- 
ber 1311, much to the grief of the people of Verona, who 



66 

with great pomp deposited his remains in Santa Maria 
Antica. Girolamo dalla Corte speaks well of him — 
"Era questo Signore Alboino della medesima natura, ch' 
era stato il Signor Bartolomeo suo fratello, quieto, paci- 
fico, amorevole, senza alcuna esperienza d' armi, delle 
quale era capital nemico, ne poteva pur supportar di mi- 
rale : era giusto, amator dell' onor di Dio, del ben publico, 
e de ? letterati : ed in somma era tutto piacevolezza, uma- 
nita, e bonta". This is scarcely such a character on which 
Dante would bestow the epithet of grande, though after 
1308, when Can Francesco was associated with Alboino 
in the government, and even from 1306, when he had come 
to be a person of some importance, the words "con lui 
vedra colui" etc. would have had an appropriate appli- 
cation to this prince, on whose tomb at Verona we see 
the imperial bird in all its dignity perched on a diminu 
tive ladder, and occupying two thirds of the shield; it' is 
a very noble eagle indeed and wears a coronet. True, 
Can Grande had a better title to bear the "segno del 
mondo" on the scala, having been the means of locat- 
ing it there, but judging from his tomb in Santa Maria 
Antica, he would seem to have cared more about his dogs 
than about the eagle, for on his monument these support 
the family ladder and we look in vain for the santo 
ucceUo *. 

Between the weak minded Alboino and the energetic 
Dante there could have been no political sympathy, and 
no mutual attachment. An impression exists that the 
Poet was not on very cordial terms with him, and did 
not care to remain at his court. In the Convito, Trat- 
tato IV., cap. 16, p. 290 (Padova 1827), Alboino della 

* The eagle on the tomb of Alboino is the Eoman Eagle, not. 
the double headed symbol of the German Empire. In the 13 th - cen- 
tury the former was used by the Emperors, as we may see in the muti- 
lated arms of Frederic II. in Westminster Abbey. Among the sketches 
which I made of arms at Verona in the autumn of 1869, is one 
where a Roman eagle is holding up the shield on which is a ladder 
with five rounds (piuoli): the claws of the bird, its head, and por- 
tions of the wings, alone are seen. Supporters of this sort occur in 
the 13 th - and 14 th - centuries, and preceded the use of side supporters. 
In the arms of the Scaligeri, engraven in Lord Vernon's work, the 
ladder on the shield is supported by two dogs erect and collared ar- 
gent on a field gules; above, on a chief or, is the double necked 
eagle of the German Empire displayed proper. These would seem to 
be comparatively modern arms, at least not earlier than the time of 
Can Grande, on whose monument the dogs also occur. The old com- 
mentators all describe the arms of the Scaligeri as a silver ladder, on 
a blood-red ground, surmounted by a black eagle. 



67 

Scala is spoken of somewhat contemptuously, as greatly 
inferior in nobility of character to Guido da Castcllo "il 
semplice Lombardo" (Purg. XVI., 125). When we take 
this passage in the Convito in connexion with that of the 
Purgatory where Alberto is alluded to, it is pretty ob- 
vious that Dante had some cause of complaint, either real 
or imaginary, both against the father and the son, but 
which ceased on the death of the latter, when Can Grande 
succeeded to his brother, and became sole ruler in Verona. 
The words, 

A lui t'aspetta ed a' suoi benefici, 
show that it was to him and to him only that Dante 
looked up. 

Can Francesco certainly deserved the title of il gran 
Lombardo much more than either of his brothers did, and 
when Dante wrote this canto both of them were dead; 
why then, it may be asked, should Dante seek to di- 
minish the sense of his obligations to Francesco by intro- 
ducing some one else to share the honours of these verses 
with him? 

In 1300, the period of the poem, as one of the Sca- 
ligeri is stated at that time to bear the eagle on the lad- 
der, and as Alberto the father then ruled, the symbol of 
empire should, it has been said, grammatically and logi- 
cally be referred to him rather than to any of his sons, 
and certainly not to the youngest of them, who was only 
then a lad of nine years of age. This objection would 
apply equally to all the Scaligeri before the last days of 
Alboino. But it is really no objection at all. The words 
of Cacciaguida, 

Che 'n su la scala porta il santo uccello, 
are spoken prophetically. The present tense is put for 
the future because Cacciaguida saw all things in God, 

A cui tutti i tempi sono presenti. 

The expression is similar to that which is used by Hugh 
Capet (Purg. XX., 85 — 93) where the fatal end of Boni- 
fazio VIII, though future, is described as present: 

Veggio in Alagna entrar lo fiordaliso 
E nel Vicario suo Cristo esser catto. 

What was future to Dante was present to Cacciaguida, 
and therefore he consistently uses the present tense, which 
is a more vivid way of expressing a fact the certainty 
of which is beyond all doubt by its having already oc- 
curred. When Dante wrote this portion of his poem the 

5* 



68 

santo uccello had for several years been domiciled over 
the scala. 

Between Dante Allighieri and Can Grande there was 
an intimate political and literary sympathy. To him Dante 
dedicated his most glorious production, the incomparable 
Paradise, with a learned epistle explanatory of the entire 
poem and forming its only introduction and key. This 
alone shows how the Poet appreciated the literary capa- 
city of his friend. When a mere child, Can Grande had 
shown remarkable qualities, which Dante had observed 
with admiration from the earliest period that they had 
come under his notice, possibly in the time of his father 
Alberto, or certainly not later than that of his brother 
Bartolomeo. The young prince was born March 9 lh - 1291, 
the year in which the Poet married, and was probably 
only two or three years older than his eldest surviving son. 
When a resident at his court, Dante appears to have 
lived with him on terms of a pleasant familiarity not un- 
mingled with a paternal regard, which could administer 
rebuke with repartee, when, in the convivial circle of the 
prince , a sharp retort was called forth by some practi- 
cal joke permitted upon himself. All throughout the nine- 
teen years of Dante's exile from Florence, he shows a 
more or less restless disposition, rarely remaining long in 
one place. Shut out by an iniquitous decree from the 
only home which he desired and loved, he could not take 
kindly to any other. In the early years of his exile we 
find nim continually moving about, now the guest of one 
friend, now of another; at a later period when, 

ciascun dovrebbe 
Calar le vele e raccoglier le sarte, 

as the voyage of life is drawing towards its close, this 
perpetually shifting the scene of his objective existence 
gave place to the desire for a permanent abode, and 
Verona became his settled home. That before he died 
he should leave the brilliant court of Can Grande and 
go and reside with Guido da Polenta at Eavenna, is no 
evidence of any disgust that Dante may have taken 
against Verona and its illustrious ruler, but simply that 
the Poet preferred a quiet and retired residence. His 
intimate literary connexion with Can Grande was kept 
up to the last. In life's pilgrimage the body needs a 
home no less than the soul, and, as the "orlo della vita" 
is approached, the conviction increases that there should 
be a rifugio and an ostello for both. In the last part of 



69 

Dante's exile it was Ravenna which afforded him a home, 
in the first part it had been Verona. 

At the very commencement of the Divina Commeclia 
we read of the mystical Veltro whom commentators, at 
one time, universally regarded as significant of Can Grande. 
Both before and alter the advent of Henry VII., he was 
the individual on whom apparently the foreseeing eye of 
the Poet rested with a prophetic confidence , and the verses 
76 to 93 of the seventeenth canto of the Paradise have 
always been connected with the verses 101 to 105 of the 
first canto of the Inferno. Possibly this circumstance may 
have led that preeminently distinguished Dantophilist, 
Monsignor Dionisi of Verona, to whom we are indebted 
for the discovery of the political sense of Dante's poem, 
to suspect that the Poet in recording la cortesia del Gran 
Lombardo, intended by that title to distinguish Can Grande 
alone. 

Monsignor Dionisi was one who did not take things 
upon trust, he searched out the truth for himself, and 
examined manuscripts to ascertain what their readings 
were, and what it was most probable that Dante wrote. 
In the Edition of the text which he published in 1796, 
instead of the ordinary reading of the 76 th - verse of this 
seventeenth canto, con lui vedrai colui etc. we have: 

Colui vedrai, colui, ch'impresso fue 
Nascendo si da questa stella forte, 
Che notabili fien Fopere sue. 

Non se ne son le genti ancora accorte, 
Per la novella eta, che pur nove anni 
Son queste ruote intorno di lui torte. v. 76 — 8.1. 

Fraticelli, from the commencement of his Dante labours, 
had been of opinion that colui and not con lui was here 
the proper reading, convinced by the reasons of Mon- 
signor Dionisi, and the evidence of Codici-, and in his 
edition of Venturi, Firenze 1837, he has given a resume 
of the argument, but with the ordinary text. In his later 
editions, however, the correct reading is introduced. It is 
singular that it should have been neglected so long, but 
not more so than that the political sense of the Divina 
Commedia should have remained hidden for nearly five 
hundred years until Monsignor Dionisi discovered it. 

The reading colui occurs in the three best codici in 
the Library of the British Museum , and may even be re- 
garded as the reading in six out of the twelve codici 
which contain this canto. It is found in Codice No. 943 



TO 

of the Egerton series , known as the Codice Britannico; 
and in the Codice No. 19.587 of the. general collection, 
which is the second of our two most approved and esteemed 
codici. In both of these the reading is identical: 

Cholui vedrai cholui che impresso fue. 
The reading of the codice No. 10.317 of the general col- 
lection which, as regards the text, is inferior to none, is 

Collui vedrai collui che impresso fue. 
In these three codici there can be no mistake, notwith 
standing that in the last the pronoun colui is written with 
two 11- s. 

In codici of the second half of the fourteenth century, 
and of the beginning of the fifteenth, it is not unusual 
to find this. In these there is no certainty that the pre- 
position con is intended unless it be fully expressed ac- 
cording to the Dante usage. Thus in codice No. 943, 
verse 69, Canto XI of the Paradise, 

Colui ch' a tutto il mondo fe paura, 
is written 

Chollui ch' a tutol mondo fe paura. 
In another place, Paradise Canto XIV., 11, the verse, 

Ne con la voce ne pensando ancora, 

was first written without the preposition con, but with 
two ll's in the form ne cholldboce, which was regarded as 
a mistake and was corrected by the same hand at the 
same time, as the manuscript shows, into cho laboce. When 
therefore we meet with chollui or collui, and cholui or 
colui, in the same verse, it not only does not follow 
that chollui is meant for con lui according to modern usage, 
though not adopted in printed texts of the Divina Corn- 
media, but it does follow that, with or without the double I, 
the pronoun alone is intended, and that unless the pre- 
position con, or its equivalent co, is found, we are not 
justified in assuming it. Possibly the compilers of the 
Volgata, gli accademici della Crusca, may have had some 
misgiving on this point, and so have printed the verse 
originally in a rather equivocal way. Hence in the other 
three codici alluded to in the Museum Library, codice 
No. 3459 of the Harleian series; the Antaldi codice, 
No. 22.780 of the general collection; and codice No. 2085 
of the additional Egerton series, though we find in the 
two former "Chollui vedrai cholui", and in the latter "Col- 
lui vedrai colui", we are not therefore to conclude that 



71 

in these three the first form of the pronoun was intended 
for con lui, but judging from analogy, and from the usage 
of the time, that it was written for cohti only; and there- 
fore that the evidence of these three may be added to 
the evidence of the first three, though their testimony be 
not quite so satisfactory. 

That the mistake of some early copyist of the poem, 
or of some obstinate grammarian, should have propagated 
a long race of erring editors and commentators , is re- 
markable, as also is it that the error should have been 
persisted in after Dionisi had shown historically that it was 
untenable. The circumstances recall to mind the honest 
protest of Vellutello on another matter, in which editors 
and commentators had combined to mislead the reader, 
of whom he indignantly says : a Sappiamo esser grandissima 
presuntione il voler alterar un testo, ma non minor igno- 
rantia crediamo, che sia il voler perseverar in uno errore, 
e specialmente quando si conosce tanto manifesto, e chiaro, 
che non v 1 e contradittione , come di questo, e di molti 
altri si puo vedere" *-. 

But to return to Dante at Verona. It does not follow 
because it has been shown that by the "grand Lombardo" 
neither Bartolomeo nor Alboino were intended by the 
Poet, that he did not visit Verona during the period 
when they were respectively in power, for all the histo- 
rical evidence which can be brought to bear on this sub- 
ject would show that he did, -and confirm the logical de- 
ductions from his own ample descriptions in the Inferno, 
Cantos XII. and XX., of localities in the neighbourhood. 
In the Piazza de' Signori at Verona, at the east side, 
on the site of the Palace built in 1272 by Mastino della 
Scala, the founder of the family supremacy, but of which 
nothing can now be identified, the whole edifice having 
been rebuilt and occupied as public offices, there is a 
marble tablet placed on which we read, and with explicit 
truth, that here the grandsons of Mastino, 

BARTOLOMEO ALBOINO CANGRANDE 

EBBERO LA GLORIA DI ACCOGLIERE 

DANTE ALLIGHIERI. 



* Vellutello on Inf. XX., 65 in reference to the reading- vol di 
monica. Edition of Sessa. 1564. See Note on the last page. 



12 

Dante at Verona would be incomplete without a few 
words on the admirable statue of the Poet by Ugo Zannoni, 
which the City, to her everlasting honour, has erected in the 
picturesque Piazza, the centre of her historical fame. It is, 
in the Author's opinion, the most pleasing, and the best si- 
tuated of any in all Italy. Less colossal than the figure 
by the Cav. Pazzi in the square of Santa Croce at Flo- 
rence, and without the indignant scowl, which would have 
been unsuited to his presence as a guest, it presents the 
Poet in a thoughtful attitude, with a thin careworn face 
having the physiognomy of Raphael's ideal portrait, but 
with a subdued expression of sorrow and suffering. Dante 
leans his chin on his right hand and arm, which rest on 
his left arm laid naturally across the body, and in his 
left hand he holds his immortal poem. The drapery is 
gathered up in a dignified fold to this side, and flows 
out gracefully behind. His left foot is advanced, and his 
forehead is covered by a cap not much unlike a small 
cappuccio, in such a way as to suggest a partial veil, 
which gives to his noble head an antique sacerdotal cha- 
racter distinctive of Italy's poetic highpriest. On the 
pedestal is the following inscription: 

A 

DANTE 

LO • PRIMO • SUO • RIFUGIO 
NELLE FESTE NEI VOTI 

CONCORDE 

OGNI TERRA ITALIAN A 

XIV . MAGGIO . MDCCCLXV 

DC . SUO . NATALIZIO 



DANTE IN THE YAL LAGARINA. 

The court of the Scaligeri at Verona. Guglielmo di Castelbarco. 
Dante's villegiatura in the Val Lagarina. The Slavina di Marco. 
The Castle of Lizzana. JBenaco, its boundaries and the source of its 
waters. Vellutello. Of the name Pennino and its popular use. 
Critical examination of the locality indicated by Dante where the 
bishops of Trent, Brescia, and Verona were each empowered 
to give the episcopal benediction. 

Dante's stay at Verona before the completion of his 
Tnferno was not a mere passing visit but a residence of 
some time, during which he had the opportunity of ac- 
quainting himself with the neighbouring districts of Val 
Lagarina, Rover edo, the Lago Benaco, Trent, and the Ty- 
rol. Among the esteemed friends of the Scaligeri were 
the Counts of Castelbarco. Guglielmo di Castelbarco, 
lord of Lizzana, and of nearly all the valley of Lagaro, 
was the chief friend of Alberto della Scala, to whom 
Guglielmo was indebted for the title of Cavalier. In 1 285 
he was named podesta of Verona, was reelected in 1288, 
and again confirmed in that office in 1289. In 1300 
Alberto appointed him his vicar in the vallies of the Giu- 
dicarie. In 1302 he was sent to Verona by the bishop 
of Trent, Filippo di Oprandino Bonacolsi, to negociate a 
peace with Bartolomeo della Scala, which he did most 
successfully. Girolamo dalla Corte thus relates the cir- 
cumstance. "Alia fine il vescovo di Trento pentito di 
tanti turbamenti, che avea eccitati, mando il signor Gugli- 
elmo da Castelbarco, suo favoritissimo, a Verona, con am- 
pia autorita di far quello che piu gli piacesse per acco- 
modar con il sig. Bartolomeo le differenze loro, e stabilir 
la pace; la quale per la piacevole e cortese natura di 
questo signore fu conclusa .... del che grandi feste 
furono fatte" (Opera citata p. 76). 

The regard entertained by Alberto della Scala for this 
courteous gentleman was continued and increased by the 



74 

high esteem in which he was held by his sons, especially 
by Alboino and Can Grande, who chose him for their 
councillor, and did nothing without previously taking his 
advice. He was also a generous benefactor to Verona. In 
1307 he began to erect at his own expense, on the ruins 
of the palace of the Count di San Bonifazio, the magni- 
ficent church of S. Anastasia, with the convent at the side; 
and, in 1313, he undertook to rebuild the monastery of 
SS. Fermo e Rustico. 

From his great friendship with the Scaligeri, being al- 
most like one of themselves, it is probable that, when in 
Verona, Guglielmo da Castelbarco lived with them in their 
palace, and must there have seen Dante and made his 
acquaintance. There was much in the character of both 
to recommend them to each other, so that an intimacy 
thus formed could not fail of ripening into friendship, 
and the benevolent Castelbarco would naturally desire to 
extend his hospitality to the homeless exile, and to alle- 
viate the hard conditions of his life by the cheering in- 
fluence of a romantic country. 

The Val Lagarina is the valley through which the 
Adige flows from Roveredo by Ala to Borghetto on its 
course to Verona, passing on its left bank the castle and 
pieve of Lizzana, Marco with its Slavina, Serravalle and 
St. Margarita; it is about fifteen Italian miles in length, 
and is separated from the Lago di Garda by Monte Baldo. 

The tradition of Dante having resided here, combined 
with his accurate and masterly descriptions of localities 
in the neighbourhood, would render it morally certain 
that the courtesy of the chief friend of the Scaligeri was 
gratefully accepted by the Poet. 

Ambrogio Franco Tridentino di Arco, who was born 
and flourished in the second half of the sixteenth century, 
in an unedited MS. entitled u JDe Arcensis castri fonda- 
tione etc.", after giving an account of the murder of Al- 
berto bishop of Trent, states that Azzone di Castelbarco 
collected his troops to avenge the bishop's death in locum 
apucl Martii Pagum Dantis poetae celeberrimum etc. * This 
however might only refer to the description of the Sla- 

* See "Lettera intorno alia dimora di Dante net Trentino", 
dal Cav. Gius. Valeriano Vanetti. •' Memorie antiche di Rovereto" 
da Jacopo Tartarotti. "Idea della Storia di Valle Lagarina". da 
Baroni. Muratori "Antiquit. Ital. Diss. XIX." "La dimora di Dante 
nel Castello di Lizzana" dal Cav. Giuseppe Telani "H Monte ca- 
duto presso il villaggio di Marco" dal Conte Benedetto Giovanelli; 
See also il Messaggiere di Roveredo for 1834, No. 63, 66, 69. 



75 

vina di Marco by Dante, but the local historians have 
regarded it as bearing on the tradition of Dante's visit 
to the Count Castelbarco. But before the time of Franco, 
a Carmelite monk left a manuscript chronicle describing 
various castles possessed by the family, in which he says 
of Lizzana — "Dante visse et dimoro per qualche spatio di 
tempo in -la villa di Lizzana, qual e prossima alle ruine di 
Marco, et ivi aveva la sua inamorata, come ho udito per 
tradizione dalla bocca degli phi vecchi del paese" *. 

Raffaelle Zotti, the author of an article on this subject 
in the Messaggiere di Roveredo of July 18, 1864, and into 
whose hands some pages of this precious MS. happened 
to fall, thinks that the writer of the chronicle may have 
been the Padre Francesco da Trevigi who lived in the 
middle of the 16 th * century. II Pad. Benedetto Bonelli 
("Notizie storico - critiche delta Chiesa di Trento". Trento 
1762) alludes to Dante's sojourn at Lizzana as an esta- 
blished fact. But the best evidence of this is the description 
which he has given of the ruin itself. 

About two miles from the town of Roveredo , on the 
post road to Verona, rises an abrupt and precipitous rock ; 
on one side it seems to have been torn by violence from 
the adjoining limestone strata, on the opposite side, to- 
wards Roveredo, there is a gradual ascent. On the slope 
of this rock, high above the road, are a few courses of 
an old wall surrounded by trees, they are the last re- 
maining vestiges of the once famous castle of Lizzana. 
When we ascend, passing through a pleasure garden to 
the highest point of the rock, the stupendous wreck of 
the mountain chain beyond , known as the Slavina di 
Marco, lies in all its awful grandeur at our feet, extend- 
ing for miles along the valley down to the winding Adige. 
The massive limestone strata, inclined at a considerable 

* The Canzone beginning- "-Amor dacche convien pur, cli'io mi 
doglia", in which the Poet refers to "Amove, in mezzo V alpV , has 
by some been supposed to relate to this vague notion, but it is ob- 
vious, from what follows, that the dlpi here alluded to are those of the 
Casentino, and that Dante, addressing Amore, was then in the Valley 
of the Arno: 

Nella valle del fiume 

Lungo il qual sempre sopra me sei forte. 
It is a curious circumstance, however, that there should actually be 
a river Arno not far off from here in the Tyrol, as we find laid down 
in the Austrian government map of 1851; it is a confluent of the 
river Sarca, and flows down the Val di Breguzzo to Bondo where it 
joins the latter. There is also a lateral valley which enters the V. 
di Breguzzo and is called Val Darno from a small mountain village, 
or castello, of that name. 



76 

angle, have slipped down from the highest ridge, under- 
mined by the springs and rains penetrating their cracks 
and fissures, and washing away the fragile connecting bands 
of slender shale, and have spread themselves in vast heaps 
of blocks and shattered fragments over a wide extent. 
The scene is one of a natural ruin on so vast a scale that 
once beheld it can never be forgotton. Dante's artistic 
eye ranged over the wild scene of destruction, and he has 
preserved an accurate and graphic picture of it in the 
twelfth canto of the Inferno. 

Qual e quella ruina, che nel fianco 
Di qua da Trento l'Adice percosse, 
O per tremuoto o per sostegno manco; 

Che da cima del monte, onde si mosse, 
Al piano e si la roccia discoscesa, 
Ch'alcuna via darebbe a chi su fosse: 

Cotal di quel burrato era la scesa. v. 4 — 10. 
From no point of view does the Poet's description better 
suit the sublime and awful scene than from the sum- 
mit of the castle rock. On approaching the village of 
Marco we pass between ruined masses of limestone, some 
of which are from fifteen to twenty feet square, but from 
no situation in the valley, either here or nearer to Mori, 
is there any point of view so suggestive of Dante's de- 
scription as the one from the summit of the rock on 
which the remains of the castle stand. 

The chronicler of the Monastery of Fulda, and other 
early historians, assign the year 883 to the fall of the 
mountain *. — There have been many repetitions of it. 
Marianni, in his description of Trento, attributes the ruin 
to an earthquake which happened in the year 369. That 
there have been local convulsions of this mountain range 
in past times, and occasionally in recent ones, would seem 
to be beyond doubt, but water, and not fire, is the agent in 
producing them. Dante's scientific eye detected this , and 
the experience of the inhabitants confirmed it. The po- 
pular story that a city was here overwhelmed is, however, 
without foundation. 

But the Poet has done more than describe the ruin, 
and explain its cause, he has added a corollary from his 
own experience, that, however difficult it might be to 
descend by such a pile of broken rock, yet it was still 
possible to do so, and he graphically depicts the move- 
ment of the fragments under his feet as he proceeded, 

* "Anndli Fuldensi" 1 ' '. Tom. I., Germanicarum rerum Scriptores. 



77 

via giu per lo scarco 
Di quelle pietre, che spesso moviensi 
Sotto i miei piedi per lo nuovo carco. v. 28 — 30. 

The castle of Lizzana is believed to date its origin 
from the days of the Romans, and to have been erected, 
probably, by the patrician family Licinia, which first gave 
name to it. In the time of the Lombards it was held by 
Kagilone di Lagara *. In 1014 the Emperor Henry II. 
was entertained here on his way back to Germany **. 
In the 12 lh - century the guelph Jacopino conte di Liz- 
zana, and lord of Koveredo, resided here, he was over- 
powered by the Ghibellines, but subsequently returned 
to the castle and became Signor of all the valley of La- 
gar o. His only son Luigi died in his father's life time, 
and his daughter Sophia, his sole heir, brought in mar- 
riage to Castelbarco the castle, the county, and all the 
vast lordship of Lizzana. Here from the 12 th - to the 15 th - 
century the counts of Castelbarco held their brilliant courts. 
The Venetians in 1439 put an end to them, and to the castle 
at the same time. The republic occupied Roveredo, and, 
to obtain Lizzana, accused the Count, who then possessed 
it, of bad faith, a common trick of tyrants in all ages. 
To his meek remonstrance the Venetians replied with their 
artillery, *** and the venerable castle never recovered 
from the bombardment it then received. All that we see 
remaining of it is a portion of a wall about fifteen feet 
long by twelve feet high, and four or five feet thick, 
built in regular courses of rough masonry, and filled in 
with coarse mortar. It could once accommodate a gar- 
rison of five hundred men; now its defenders have 
dwindled down to two farm servants only. But the place 
when I visited it in the autumn of 1869, was still almost 
impregnable, for after having battered on the wooden 
gates with a heavy stone for nearly half an hour, I should 
have been forced to raise the siege, had not an active 
and obliging youth, who was tending sheep on the green 
hill side, volunteered to scale the outer wall and sur- 
prize the guards within, which he did, when one of 
them came and opened the gates. From the upper part 
of the rock, the slope of which is now laid out in 
terraces for the cultivation of the vine, we may yet trace 

* Baroni — "-Idea clella Storia di Vcdle Lagarina". 
** Muratori — "Antiqmb. JtoZ." Diss. XX. 
*** Sanuto e Zagata "Cronaca Veronese", pt. II. , vol. I., p. 164 
et seg. 



78 

the circular outline of the original walls. Besides the 
habitation for the two farm servants, a few rooms are 
set apart for the proprietor, who lives at Roveredo, and 
occasionally in summer comes here with his friends to 
dine. From Roveredo it is a pleasant walk to this in- 
teresting relic in the Val Lagarina. We follow the main 
road as far as the Madonna del Monte, and then take the 
path on the left hand, which skirts along the side of the 
hill, gradually ascending till we reach the ruin. 

The first station on the railway from Roveredo to 
Verona is Mori, here, and in its neighbourhood, the 
heaps of ruined rock looking as if they had been shaken 
down, form vast hills of debris, and the line has been 
cut through what appear to be a series of ancient mo- 
rains. Mori is the station for Riva whence the drive down 
to the lake of Garda is romantic in the extreme. Moun- 
tains and their ruins lie heaped up on each side as if 
the rocks had here been thrown about in some wild sport 
of Titans, or great Jove, in wrath, had hurled them at 
their heads. 

Dante has immortalized the Lago di Garda, and no 
lake in all Italy better deserved this honour. 

Suso in Italia bella giace un laco, 
Appie delFalpe, che serra Lamagna, 
Sopra Tirali, ed ha nome Benaco. 

Per mille fonti, credo, e piu si bagna, 
Tra Garda, e Val di Monica, Pennino, 
Dell' acqua, che nel detto lago stagna. 

Luogo e nel mezzo la, dove '1 Tr*entino 
Pastore, e quel di Brescia, e '1 Veronese 
Segnar poria, se fesse quel cammino. 
Canto XX., v. 61 — 9. (Dionisi.) 

The Poet here shows that he was well acquainted with 
the physical geography of the Lake, and its surround- 
ings; and having given, in few words, an accurate de- 
scription of its position and formation, proceeds to indi- 
cate a locality within its waters where the three bishops 
of the adjoining districts Trent, Brescia, and Verona might 
equally exercise their functions, by giving an episcopal 
blessing, if they passed that way. Suso has reference to 
the upper world, 

NelF aer dolce, che dal sol s'allegra; 
Virgil and Dante being then in the lower regions grop- 
ing their way along by the lurid glare of the infernal 
bolge. The Alps indicated are the Rhaetic portion of 



79 

that vast mountain barrier, the natural boundary of Italy 
to the West, the North, and the East, which, rising up at 
Turbia from the Ligurian Sea, sweeps all round the fron- 
tier under the various local names of the Cottian, the 
Pennine, the Rhaetic and the Julian Alps, and then, 
descending southward to Aquileia, includes Istria as far as 
the gulph of Quarnaro, 

Che Italia chiude e suoi termini bagnia. 
Dante calls this protecting chain of natural barriers against 
invading hosts, and which to Italy are the sources, of her 
great fertilizing rivers and of her most lovely lakes, 
simply Le Alpe, and, in reference to Benaco, le alpe 

che serra Lamagna 
Sopra Tirali, 

at the feet of which Benaco lies. In one sense these Alps 
are a long way off, beyond the Trentino, and beyond the 
territory then held by the Counts of Tyrol near Meran, 
where their ancient castle (Schloss Tyrol) raised on an 
old morain, or a lofty heap of water- worn debris, in which 
small boulders of granite and porphyry are imbedded in 
gravel, sand, and loam, still attests their former rule ; but 
a section of the country from the summit of these Alps 
to the surface of the lake would show that there is more 
or less of a general slope, as is demonstrated by the course 
of the rivers Oglio, Sarca and the Adige. No mention is 
made of a country called Tyrol till long after the time 
of Dante. Meran, in the middle ages, and even later, was 
considered to be in Italy. Blondo Flavio in his "Italia 
illustrata", (Verona 1482), after having mentioned Liz- 
zana, Roveredo, and other places, says — "e sopra vi ha 
Merano, citta popolata, la quale avvegnache situata in 
Italia, pel linguaggio, pei costumi della sua gente e te- 
desca piuttostoche italica". 

There has been much difference of opinion as to the 
correct reading of verse 65. Numerous versions of it are 
found in codici. Garda, once the chief town on the lake, 
and from which its modern name is derived, marks its 
Eastern border, below which the hills on this side gra- 
dually sink down into the plain. On the opposite shore 
is Salo, and not far from here is a locality known as 
the vol di Monica, a small valley connected with the 
Val Tenesi. 

Though the waters of the Lake are in part furnished 
by a thousand rills and torrents, yet the chief confluents 
are a few rivers on the north and western shores. Of 



80 

these rivers the Sarca which enters the basin of Benaco 
between the romantic little town of Torbole, at the north- 
eastern angle of the lake, and the fashionable Riva at 
the north-western angle, is the most important. The 
Sarca is an extremely tortuous river, it rises far off in 
the mountains to the North and North-west of the gla- 
cier Vedret- di Nodis *, near which several small moun- 
tain lakes serve as feeders, and rushing down the Val 
di Rendena, at Trione is joined by a tributary stream, 
the Arno, that rises in the mountains to the west, out- 
liers, possibly, of the Pennine chain, and flows down the 
Val di Breguzzo to Bondo, and then, folding on itself, 
arrives at Tione, where the united streams turning to the 
East and North-east, bend round the shoulder of Monte 
Casale, and enter the valley of the Sarca. Though the 
water of the Lake reaches it chiefly by the channels in 
its upper and western shores above Salo, yet a small 
stream enters the Lake between Salo and Desenzano, 
a town situated at its south-western angle, and not far 
from the village of Moniga, which gives name to the 
Val di Monica. All that mountainous district above 
Benaco , which furnishes from its drainage the waters 
of the Lago d' Iseo, the Lago d' Idro, and the Lago di 
Garda, as well as of the Rivers Adige , Brenta, and Piave, 
which discharge their contents into the Adriatic, is called 
in Italian maps the Contrada Alpina, and extends to the 
line which Dante has so well defined, sopra Tirali. The 
Lago d' Iseo is fed by the river Oglio, which collects all 
the water drainage of the Val Camonica, some sixty miles 
off: the small lake, the Lago d' Idro, which lies between 
the former and the Lago di Garda, is fed chiefly by the 
Chiese, which has its source near the great Glacier be- 
tween the head of the Val Camonica and the Val di Ren- 
dena, and flows down the Val Bona. 

No portion whatever of the drainage of the Val Camo- 
nica could ever reach the basin of Benaco by any other 
means than the aerial process of evaporation and subse- 
quent condensation; the Val Camonica is quite cut off from 
any terrestrial communication with the Lago Benaco. It 
is therefore presumable that Dante did not introduce this 
valley in his verse, and that instead of Val Camonica, 

* At least so it would appear to do as shown on the large geo- 
logical map of the Tyrol published by the Austrian government 
in 1851. In other maps of the Tyrol, to a smaller scale, it is shown 
to rise from the Vedret del Mandrio, as stated in my "Contributions 
to the Critical Study of the Divina Commedia". p. 142. 



81 

as in the majority of texts, we ought, with Benvenuto da 
Imola, Vellutello, and Dionisi , to read Val di Monica. 
Vellutello was not one of those timid pecorelle described 
by the Poet, who follow the leader without knowing why. 

E cio che fa la prima, e l'altre fanno, 
Addossandosi a lei s' ella s'arresta, 
Semplici e quete, e lo 'mperche non sanno. 

But he thought for himself, and did not stop short at 
old landmarks set up by an antiquated authority. Vellu- 
tello deprived Can Bartolomeo of the title which all pre- 
vious commentators had assigned to him though he had 
no legal right to it; and he removed the Val Camo- 
nica from the received text of Dante because it had no- 
thing to do with the Lago Benaco. He dared to brave the 
malice of the world by rejecting an ancient blunder in- 
crusted with sacred rust *. 

Vellutello's remark as to pennino is also very just. 
The Pennine Alps are not in this part of Northern Italy, 
they do not separate Italy from Germany, but from 
Switzerland. Pennino, as here used by Dante, is a local 
term only. Between 'Isera and Ravazzone, on the Monte 
Stivo, which separates the valley of the Adige from that 
of the Sarca, is a mount, which is to this day called 
pennino **. But Isera and Ravazzone are on the right 
bank of the Adige, and are connected by a road which 
runs parallel to the main road on the left bank from Ro- 
veredo to the bridge before reaching Mori; all the drain- 
age of this valley flows into the Adige. The Pennino 
mentioned by Dante is not this, but the application of the 
name shows its popular use. Vellutello having given, in 
a general way, the length of the Lake, 36 miles, and its 
breadth, where greatest 16, where least 6, states, "Conti- 
nua la sua lunghezza alle radici d'uno de' detti monti 
(sopra Tiralli) da quelli del paese nominato Pennino, ove 
sono bellissimi, ed amenissimi giardini di cedri, rigati da 
infiniti limpidissimi fonti, le cui acque, da Gar da a Val- 
dimonica, valle nel Bresciano, cadon e stagnan, nel detto 
lago". Vellutello would seem to allude here to the series 
of gardens which fringe the western border of the lake, 
raised tier on tier, with white brick piers and white bars 
laid lengthways over them, looking like rows on rows of 

* In the remarks on this passage in my "Contributions" I then 
preferred the reading "Val Camonica", for the reasons assigned, but 
I have since more fully studied the locality. 

** Or little mountain. See Raffaelle Zoti, opera citata. 



82 

dwarf crystal palaces, except that there is no glass in 
their construction. This side of the lake receives the 
morning and mid-day sun, and has a cheerful character 
contrasted with the rugged rocky border of the opposite 
shore. As Dante generalized the various ranges of the 
Alps under one common appellation le alpe, so here he 
has generalized the mountains around Benaco by the po- 
pular name Pennino. On the western shore of the lake 
between Salo and Gardone there is also a small mountain 
contrada called by the inhabitants of the Riviera Pegnino *. 
All these facts would tend to show the intimate personal 
acquaintance which Dante had with this locality. 

But the question which more than any other has given 
rise to differences of opinion respecting the topographical 
indications of Dante, is that of the locality where the 
three bishops of Trent, Brescia, and Verona could each 
equally exercise their episcopal authority. All the old 
commentators appear to have been extremely ignorant of 
the geography of the Lago di Garda, and had only a 
vague notion that the place indicated was within the wa- 
ters of the lake. Jacopo della Lana, Benvenuto da Imola, 
Buti, Landino, Daniello, and others, merely repeat what 
the Poet had said, that the place was somewhere "in 
mezzo del dicto lagho" — "In mezzo di questo lago sono 
i confini di Trento e di Brescia, e di Verona" (Ottimo). 
Landino, who here, as elsewhere, takes Buti for his guide, 
repeats what the former had said, "Dimostra che questo 
lagho e nel mezo di Trento, di Brescia, e di Verona, in 
forma che le diocesi cioe vescovadi di queste citta arri- 
vano a mezo ellagho et quivi confinano". Some modern 
commentators have revived this notion. Rossetti has the 
same sentence on it as Daniello (1568), "nel mezzo di 
questo (lago)". When the commentators, no longer content 
to look in the water for the place alluded to, sought for 
it on the dry land, they fell, into great disorder. Vellu- 
tello was the first to attempt this , but here he failed. He 
supposed that it was at Termellon (Terminon), half way 

* In the Paduan Edition of Lombardi there is a note on this 
subject by an intelligent observer, once the royal commissioner of the 
district of Salo, Giuseppe Zamara, in which he says "to the NW is 
situated il Pennino (Penino with one n only), a true appendix of the 
Alpes Poenae, which begin at the mount called S. Bartolommeo, at 
the foot of which is Salo, and extend as far as Limone, that is all 
along the beautiful shore of the lake, bathed by a multitude of rivu- 
lets derived from perennial springs". And adds — "The chain of 
mountains from that of S. Bartolommeo to beyond Limone is named 
in the Geography of Tolomeo (Tav. VI. lib. 3) Alpes Pcenae. 



'83 

between Peschiera at the south east corner of the lake, 
in the Veronese, and Riva at the north west corner, in 
the Trentino, "poco lontano da Malcesene", and just op- 
posite to a small island, S. Giorgio, where, he says, "the 
dioceses of Trent and Brescia terminate, hence it is called 
Terminon, corrupted to Termellon, and as the lake itself 
is in the diocese of Verona, here all three dioceses meet 
together". But Malcesene, or rather Malcesine, at the foot 
of Monte Baldo, a place noted for occasional convulsions 
of the mountain, is on the eastern shore of the lake, and 
has nothing whatever to do with the diocese of Brescia 
on the opposite side. Had Vellutello named Tremosine 
(Tremosignum) , which is almost vis-a-vis to Malcesine, 
and not far from the Campione, "forse in alcun vero ;; 
he might have hit the mark. 

Leandro Alberti in his "Descrittione di Tutta Italia" 
(Venice 1588), having spoken of Tusculano and Gargnano 
on the western shore of the lake, alludes to the spring 
of cold water (la Fontana Frigella) which issues from 
the rock a little above the latter town, "beyond which, 
about five miles along the shore of the lake, we enter 
the Prato delta fame, where, as it is said, three bishops, 
each standing in his own diocese, might touch each other's 
hands". 

Poggiali, in his edition of Dante, here followed Alberti. 
"II lago di Garda detto dai latini Benacus e il phi grande 
di tutti i laghi d ; Italia. Virgilio lib. II. v Georg. v. 160, lo 
descrive come emulo al mare nei flutti. E situato tra i ter- 
ritori di Brescia, e di Verona, ed e di figura bislunga. 
Dalla parte del Bresciano confina colla sua sponda una 
contrada amena, fertile, e molto popolata, detta la Ri- 
viera di Sal 6 da Sal6 ricca, e popolata Terra. In mezzo 
appunto a questa Riviera vicino al lago e un luogo detto 
oggidi il Prato delta fame, 5 miglia discosto da Gargnano. 
Quivi confinono, o confinavano ai tempi di Dante, le tre 
Diocesi di Trento, di Brescia, e di Verona". Lombardi 
had been of the same opinion. In the map of the Lake 
sometimes found in the Latin poem on Benaco, entitled 
"Georgii Jodoci Bergani Benacus " (Verona 1546 ) , the lo- 
cality where the three dioceses meet together is placed at 
the mouth of the Campione , a few miles to the north of the 
Prato delta fame, and is thus noticed on the map "hie 
conterminant tres episcopatus". The padre Venturi, more 
than a century ago, to vary the site, placed it on the 
long narrow promontory of Sermione that projects mid- 
way into the lake at its southern extremity; but he had 



84 

few followers. The opinion which has been received with 
most favour since the publication of the Paduan edition 
of Lombardi is that the place was on the left bank of 
the Tignalga, south of the Campione, just where the little 
river enters the lake, and it was argued by its discoverer, 
Giovanni Milani, that as the left bank is in the diocese 
of Trent, the right in that of Brescia, and the lake itself 
in that of Verona, there must here be a spot, either dry- 
land or water, where the three dioceses come together, 
and the three bishops each standing in his own could 
shake hands with one another. Fraticelli subscribed to this,' 
but Brunone Bianchi would not thus compromise his cre- 
dit with posterity, he confessed his inability to decide 
between so many claimants, and left the controversy where 
he found it. All these speculations seem truly ridiculous. 

Biagioli brings us back again to the lake itself with 
the remark "parla d'un tratto di terra che giace nel mezzo 
del detto Lago". This would point to the position of 
Sermione, and probably he had that narrow promontory 
in his mind when he wrote it; but it also suggests an 
island lying out midway in the lake. 

The three dioceses have not always had the same 
extent, nor retained the same boundaries, neither have 
the provinces themselves. The lake and its borders have 
been differently divided among neighbouring rulers at 
different times according as the fortune of war, or other 
causes, gave them possession of the towns on its banks. 
II Zotti quotes a document to show that the communities 
of Gargnano and Limone were at one period of the 13 th - 
century subject to the bishop of Trent, along with Kiva, 
which is so still ; but at the beginning of the 14 th * cen- 
tury all the tow As on the lake, including Sal6, which had 
rebelled, voluntarily returned to the authority of the Sca- 
ligeri of Verona. Maffei, " Verona Illustrata", says that 
in Pliny's time, as in his own, the whole of Benaco was 
in the Veronese. It is not thus shown in maps illustra- 
tive of the divisions of the country in the time of the 
Hohenstaufen dynasty, nor is it thus laid down in mo- 
dern maps. A portion of the upper part of the lake is 
always shown to belong to the Trentino, but the boun- 
dary line across varies; the remainder is bisected by an 
imaginary line drawn from this either to the point of 
Sermione, as in the Hohenstaufen map, or to Peschiera, 
as in modern maps, the eastern portion of the lake being 
given to the Veronese, the western to the Bresciano. So 
that there is a point in the lake where the three pro- 



85 

vinces come together, and, supposing the dioceses to cor- 
respond, un luogo net mezzo, where the respective bishops, 
each submerged in his own diocese, might give a 
benediction to the fishes. But this is not what Dante 
meant, his words have a meaning in reference to dry land 
in the midst of the water where each bishop had a ca- 
nonical right to exercise his episcopal functions without 
Inconvenience. Giuseppe Torelli of Verona was, I believe, 
the first to put his finger on the place, though his friend 
Antonio Cesari did not think fit to report the fact in his 
imaginary conversations where Torelli takes a part. 

In the deep blue waters of Benaco between Sal6 and 
Garda on opposite shores, an island of some extent rises 
above the surface, the largest and farthest removed of 
a little group standing aloof from the busy haunts of men. 
Imagination had assigned to it the form of the cross ; be 
that as it may, it was justly famed for the salubrity of 
the air, and the charms of its situation ; here, disease and 
decay were believed to be unknown, and pious men might 
hope long to dwell in peace. In 1220 the good St. Francis 
visited the Island, and it pleased him well, and he ob- 
tained a conventual residence on it for a branch of his 
numerous family. It was the twenty-sixth convent which 
the Seraphic Father established. From that time the is- 
land became known as the Isola de' Frati. It is now 
called the Isola Lecchi, from the name of the count whose 
property it is. Here, as recorded by the Padre Gonzaga 
in his history of the order, was a chapel dedicated to S a - 
Margherita, where the three bishops, of Trent, Brescia, 
and Verona, had equal jurisdiction and authority *. The 

*) De Origine Seraphica JReligionis Franciscanm, etc. etc. 
F. Francisci Gonzaga eiusdem Heligionis Ministri Generalis, etc. etc. 
Romse 1587. p. 496. The account which he gives is as follows. 

De conventu S. Marine de Jesu Insula Garda. Conv. XXVI. 
Antiquissimus profecto est hie conventus, B. Marise de Jesu di- 
catus, ac in insula Gardse, quse ex niediis undis lacus Benacensis 
surrigit, situs: cum a beatissimo P. Francisco, prout ex quibusdam 
Uteris seraphici Doctoris, ac beati patris Bonaventuras , quarum 
transumpta, et in huius loci, atque etiam in Brixiensis monasterii ar- 
chiuis asseruantur, satis patet, occupatus fuerit. Ex prsefatis Uteris, 
a quatuor etiam sibi succedentibus nostri Ordinis Generalis Ministris 
confirmatis, possunt huius monastery fratres, et Mozambani, et per 
singula oppida, atque pagos Veronensis dioecesis, ad Benacensis ta- 
men lacus ripas sitos, necessaria emendicare. Substitit olim*in hac 
insula Garda, prout dirutse ecclesise, prsealtse turres, ac antiquissi- 
morum sepulchrorum vestigia commonstrant, pulcherrimum oppidum, 
quod tamen ob pyraticam artem, quam eius incolse in transeuntes, ac 
convicinos populos exercebant, funditus fuit eversum. Existimarim 



86 

steamer, in its course from Salo to Desenzano, leaves it 
on the larboard side; it is a long fertile looking island, 
partly fringed with trees, rocky at one extremity and 
only just raised above the water at the other, with re- 
mains on it of palatial - like buildings of some extent. 
Dante's regard for S. Francis and his order is well known, 
and the fact of the Franciscans having here a home was 
not overlooked by him in his description of Benaco. 

facile hanc sedem, quam 20. fratres inhabitant, ex eius ruinis, acce- 
dentibus tamen piis convicinorum, turn pagorum, turn quoque oppido- 
rum eleemosynis, constructam, qua nihil aliud habitationis in hac in- 
sula invenire licet: sed ea tota, quae mille passus in orbem continet, 
fratribus paret. Facillime tamen earn campis Elysiis comparaverim: 
Nam ibi, aeris temperie, atque salubritate illis maxime favente, nun- 
quam homines senescunt, raroque infirmitatibus gravantur, imo potius 
vegeta semper setate fruuntur. Usee proceris ficuum, atque olivarum 
arboribus decoratur: Hsecque malis Punicis, malisque Medicis, atque 
citris maxime abundat. In eminentiori vero eius parte sedicula quse- 
dam, S. Margarete dicata, erecta adhuc perseverat, quae tribus Episco- 
pis, Tridentino scilicet, Brixiensi, atque Veronensi subest. Cui tantse 
profunditatis aqua adhseret, ut nesciat demissus cum plumbo funis 
eius invenire finem. (The greatest depth of the lake is 600 metres.) 
Ex altera vero eius parte horridam cavernam conspicere licet, quam, 
contemplationis vacandse gratia, divus Bernardinus frequentare assue- 
verat. Ad hanc etiam insulam, tanta est eius amoenitas, animi ob- 
lectandi, vel amiss^e salutis recuperandse gratia, plures heroes, sesti- 
vali prsesertim tempore, se conferunt. Ac tandem hoc in ipso con- 
ventu, qui, ante S. Bernardini tempora, eremitorium beati Francisci 
de Gargano nuncupabatur, reverendissimus pariterque doctissimus P. 
F. Franciscus Lichettus, totius Minoritici Instituti Generalis Minister, 
30. discipulorum, eoque amplius, gymnasium tenuit: quibus Metaphi- 
sicam, sacramque Theologiam, ex Scoto Doctore subtili, felicissime 
perlegit. Quorum singuli vel lectores peritissimi, vel predicatores 
disertissimi evaserunt. 



87 



APPENDIX. 

Note in reference to the reading collui of Cod. No. 10.317 del 
Museo Britannico p. 70. 

Throughout this Codice colui is almost invariably written with 
two IV s. The exceptions to it are very few indeed, thus we have 
among many other instances — 

Inf. III. 59. Vidi e conubbi lombra di collui. 

- VII. 73. collui lo cui saper tutto trascende. 

- XII. 32. che venesse collui che la gran preda. 

- XIII. 58. Io son collui che tenni ambo le chiavi. 

- XV. 112. collui potei che dal servo de servi. 

- XXVI. 34. el qual collui chesse vengio colliorsi. 

- XXIX. 29. sovra collui che gia tenne altaforte. 
Purg. VIII. 68. chettu dei a collui chessi nasconde. 

X. 94. collui che. ma no vide cosa nuova. 
XVI. 32. per tornar bella accollui chettifece. 
XIX. 41. come collui chella di pensier carca. 
Pard. XIX. 40. poi comincio collui che volse il sexto. 

XXI. 50. nel vider di collui che tutto vede. 

XXII. 41. lo nome di collui chen terra adusse. 

On the last leaf of the Codice is the following notice by Pro- 
fessor Ciampi. 

"Questo codice del dante e scritto sul fine del secolo decimo 
quarto, o sul cominciare del secolo decimo quinto. L'ortografia e 
antica, e il dialetto e della vecchia lingua popolare fiorentina. Le 
note sono alcune relative alia parte istorica, altre alia spiagazione 
delle allegoric Un carattere della antichita del codice e Tessere 
la pergamena riscritta; poiche nel secolo 15. inoltrato non si co- 
piava piu sopra pergamene vecchie, come e stato asservato dai 
conoscitori della bibliografia antica; poiche, inventatasi la stampa, 
i copisti de' codici procuravano di gareggiare nella nitidezza con le 
edizioni a stampa; e l'uso stesso della stampa rendeva meno neces- 
saria Teconomia della cartapecora". 

Ciampi. 



GOT & 



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